About 70 percent of all human proteins include at least one sequence consisting of a single amino acid repeated many times, with a few other amino acids sprinkled in. These “low-complexity regions” are also found in most other organisms. The proteins that contain these sequences have many different functions, but MIT biologists have now come up with a way to identify and study them as a unified group. Their technique allows them to analyze similarities and differences between LCRs from different species, and helps them to determine the functions of…
