{"id":621739,"date":"2026-08-05T12:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T12:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/621739\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T12:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T12:37:11","slug":"study-reveals-evolutionary-shift-in-gene-crucial-for-the-human-nervous-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/621739\/","title":{"rendered":"Study reveals evolutionary shift in gene crucial for the human nervous system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain variants in the PSPH gene, which encodes an enzyme called phosphoserine phosphatase, prevent the body from making sufficient amounts of amino acid L-serine, leading to a range of nervous system problems. New research in FEBS Open Bio reveals that PSPH in ancient human genomes differed functionally from modern and disease-associated versions of the gene.<\/p>\n

Investigators found that the modern human DNA sequence of PSPH differs from sequences identified in ancient hunter-gatherers. In evolution-guided yeast complementation assays, modern-day human phosphoserine phosphatase had the greatest function, with ancient proteins showing diminished function and disease-associated variants exhibiting the weakest function.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our study highlights the potential of combining evolution-guided variant prioritization with scalable heterologous assays to uncover functional differences that may otherwise remain overlooked.”<\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

Alexander DeLuna, PhD, co-corresponding author, Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV), Mexico<\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Source:<\/p>\n

Journal reference:<\/p>\n

Campa\u2010\u00c1lvarez, M., et al. (2026). Evolution\u2010guided yeast complementation reveals functional differences in human PSPH variants. FEBS Open Bio. DOI: 10.1002\/2211-5463.70308.\u00a0https:\/\/febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/2211-5463.70308<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Certain variants in the PSPH gene, which encodes an enzyme called phosphoserine phosphatase, prevent the body from making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[6429,3286,18,3287,8101,3288,135,19,17,6367,116090,172,166783,55764],"class_list":["post-621739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-amino-acid","tag-dna","tag-eire","tag-enzyme","tag-evolution","tag-gene","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nervous-system","tag-phosphatase","tag-research","tag-serine","tag-yeast"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117042941212035105","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}