The glacier ice worm, Mesenchytraeus solifugus, is among a few animals that reside permanently in glacier ice. Their adaptation to cold temperature has been linked to relatively high intracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels, which compensate for reductions in molecular motion at low physiological temperatures. Here, we show that ATP6-the critical regulatory subunit of the F1Fo-ATP synthase and primary target of mitochondrial disease-acquired an unprecedented histidine-rich, 18-amino acid carboxy-terminal extension, which counters the strong evolutionary trend of mitochondrial genome compaction. Furthermore, sequence analysis suggests that this insertion is not of metazoan origin, but rather is a product of horizontal gene transfer from a microbial dietary source, and may act as a proton shuttle to accelerate the rate of ATP synthesis.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 31. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 September 2026.
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#1,622,029
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Outputs from Evolutionary Bioinformatics
#10
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Outputs of similar age
#25,613
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Outputs of similar age from Evolutionary Bioinformatics
#1
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Altmetric has tracked 34,393,205 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 428 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 371,562 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 8 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them
