Credit: Jez Lab/Washington University in St. Louis
For the first time scientists have caught the cell machinery that makes a vital molecule in the process of evolving. A key enzyme plants use to make tyrosine, an amino acid necessary for life, was thought to be conserved across the plant kingdom but the scientists found it has mutated to another form in legumes. In cherry tomatoes the canonical form of the enzyme dominates, peanuts can switch hit and some strains of soybeans (lumpy beans to the right) have lost the canonical form.