Pros and cons of amino acid structure vs DNA sequences for evolutionary comparison This is an analysis question for a lab on the amino acid differences in beta globin amongst different primates, and using such differences to construct a cladogram and infer evolutionary relationships from it. Any input is greatly appreciated! Question: What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of using amino acid structure of proteins for evolutionary analysis? In your opinion, would it be more useful to use DNA sequences for this type of evolutionary comparison between living and extant species? Why or why not?

Amino acid (protein) structure has its advantages over raw DNA.

Protein structure already has introns (noncoding regions) trimmed out which aren't obvious from a plain DNA string.

A protein can have different shapes (such as unbound/bound) or even folded/misfolded (as in the case of prions). DNA doesn't have a way of encoding these changes as they are dependent on substrates, environmental factors and available energy.

Visualizing the 3D structure of a protein can give insight into its functionality that you can't read off a DNA string.