Campodonico-Burnett, William2014-08-262014-08-262014-07https://hdl.handle.net/1794/1805043 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Biochemistry and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Summer 2014.Ancestral sequence resurrection (ASR) is an important tool for studying evolution on a molecular scale. The process takes a broad range of extant samples and, using sequence alignment and evolutionary prediction algorithms, determines the most likely sequence to have evolved into modern-day proteins. While ever-improving technologies allow for increasingly reliable predictions, it is impossible to prove whether a reconstruction is in fact the true ancestor. This project will analyze the fidelity of the ASR process in the context of the divergence of enzymatically inactive guanylate kinase-like binding domains and enzymatically active guanylate kinases from a common ancestor. A maximum likelihood ancestor has already been predicted, so by comparing relative enzymatic activity of this ancestor, a variety of mutants, Bayesian predictions, and extant enzymes, we will be able to assess the validity of ASR for this billion-year-old evolutionary event.en-USAll Rights Reserved.BiochemistryKineticsEnzyme KineticsGuanylate KinaseASRAncestral SequenceEnzyme EvolutionThesis / Dissertation