One of the most famous examples of a new trait evolving is the development of nylonase; an enzyme that hydrolyses nylon oligomers. Since Nylon is a man-made material, only invented in the last century, the appearance of nylonase is surely a prime example of a brand new trait evolving.
My question relates to how exactly it evolved - I've seen compelling evidence that it evolved through a gene duplication and frame shift caused by the insertion of a single base:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article
9-0153.pdf
However recently this paper was brought to my attention:
http://www.jbc.org/content/280/47/39644.long
It seems (please correct me if I'm wrong) to suggest that nylonase came about through specific amino acid changes in the active site of pre-existing esterases, which would mean that a frame-shift mutation had not occured, rather a series of specific changes to the gene.
If this is true then nylonase isn't the result of "brand new" genetic "information" it is often touted to be.
I'm not a chemist, I'm a Biology student, so the second paper was a little baffling to me, if anyone could clarify the conclusions drawn and consequences to the accepted explanation of how nylonase evolved, I would be very thankful.