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Crystal structures reveal that core stability is modulated by family-specific interactions that favor certain substrates. This suggests how present-day helicases diversified from an ancestral core with broad specificity by retaining core closure as a common catalytic mechanism while optimizing substrate-binding interactions for different cellular functions.</jats:p>","journal":"eLife","year":2014,"id":667958,"datarank":0.5676284450877392,"base_score":3.784189633918261,"endowment":3.784189633918261,"self_citation_contribution":0.5676284450877392,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5676284450877392,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":43,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1744286,"name":"David J Sidote","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1744287,"name":"Alan M Lambowitz","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1744285,"name":"Anna L Mallam","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Molecular insights into RNA and DNA helicase evolution from the determinants of specificity for a DEAD-box RNA helicase","abstract":"<jats:p>How different helicase families with a conserved catalytic ‘helicase core’ evolved to function on varied RNA and DNA substrates by diverse mechanisms remains unclear. 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