The protein Myo1D was found to be sufficient to induce body asymmetry

Asymmetry plays an important role in biology at all scales: consider the DNA spiral, the fact that the human heart is on the left, and the fact that we tend to use our left or right hand. But how do these asymmetries come about and are they related to each other?
study, researchers from France and the United States showed how a single protein induces another molecule to spiral. Through the domino effect, this causes cells, organs, and even the entire body to curl, triggering side-by-side behavior. The findings, published in the November 23, 2018 issue of the journal Science, are titled "Molecular to organism chirality is induced by the conserved myosin 1D."
years, a team led by Stéphane Noselli, a researcher at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), has been studying left and right asymmetries to solve these mysteries. They have identified the first gene to control the asymmetry of fruit flies, one of the model organisms favored by biologists. Recently, the Noselli team found that the gene plays the same role in vertebrates: the protein it produces, myosin 1D (Myosin 1D, Myo1D), which controls the coiling or rotation of organs in the same direction.
the new study, the researchers induced Myo1D production in organs that remained symmetrical under normal conditions in fruit flies, such as the respiratory trachea. Surprisingly, this is enough to cause asymmetries at all levels: deforming cells, winding the tracheal around itself, twisting the entire body, and spiraling behavior of fruit fly larvae. It is worth noting that these new asymmetries are always creating in the same direction.
To identify the origins of these cascading effects, biochemists from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States also contributed to the project: on glass cover slides, they exposed Myo1D to a component of the cytoskeleton ---myosin--- in the cytoskeleton. They were able to observe that the interaction between the two proteins led to the spiral shape of the tendon protein.
In addition to its role in left and right asymmetry in fruit flies and vertebrates, Myo1D appears to be a unique protein that induces asymmetry at all scales and induces its own asymmetry: first at the molecular level, and then through the domino effect, at the cellular, tissue, and behavioral levels. These results suggest a potential mechanism that led to the sudden emergence of new morphological features, such as the curling of a snail's body, during evolution. Therefore, Myo1D seems to be all that is necessary for this new morphological feature to appear, because its expression is sufficient to cause curling on all scales. (Bio Valley)