Buried treasure: bioactive plant seed proteins evolving inside hosts

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This project aims to examine how evolution in plants shortcuts the creation of new proteins by burying one within another. Scientists now realise that new genes and proteins appear frequently. A recent discovery in plant seeds involves DNA sequence insertions in a gene that makes two proteins instead of one. This project will reveal a new family of buried seed proteins, determine the rules for burying them and search plants for new examples. The first examples from plants create strongly bioactive products so the ability to dig for similar plant events will reveal new and bioactive natural products with biomedical and biotechnology applications.