New paper: Human and Non-Human Primate Lineage-Specific Footprints in the Salivary Proteome

A very nice study of the proteins in our saliva as compared to our primate cousins came out @MBE – The study is led by our long time collaborator Stefan Ruhl’s group. Our results are in line with the general ideas presented in 70’s in King and Wilson’s classic paper where the dosage differences in protein levels (rather than changes in protein sequences) may explain species-specific characteristics. There is observable variation in specific protein amounts between primate species. Moreover, we found that human saliva seems to have specific characteristic including a highly watery saliva as compared to other great apes – maybe an adaptation to dramatic change in our diets. Plus – awesome protein gels. 🙂

Nice press release from @ubscience can be found here