Chemical Paleogenetics. Molecular "Restoration Studies" of Extinct Forms of Life.

Abstract

Attention is attracted to the possibility of reconstructing the amino-acid sequence of ancestral polypeptide chains by virtue of a comparison between the amino-acid sequences of related polypeptide chains found in contemporary organisms. A tentative partial structure is proposed for two ancestral hemoglobin polypeptide chains. Some perspectives of paleobiochemistry are outlined.