Those who have read The Design Matrix might appreciate the significance of this research:

The phenotype piqued Kopan's interest: He saw the potential of looking at the role of PS independent of Notch. Khandelwal and Chandu took the phenotype, switched out a mammalian form of PS into the phenotype and rescued it. Similarly, inserting the moss gene in mammalian cells resulted in reversing some of the losses experienced by animal cells lacking PS function, testifying that the human and moss proteins had an evolutionary conserved function.

"In the moss, the proteins were very nearly interchangeable," Quatrano said.

and

"Importantly, the human protein acted in plant cells even if its enzymatic activity was removed by mutation. We stumbled upon an observation that PS proteins in mammals can perform other functions besides the enzymatic ones, that is, outside its role as gamma secretase. We're now looking closely to define these moonlighting functions and determine their contribution to disease."

Here

HT: Doug

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