ArticleGenome biology and evolution2009
Phylogenomics of sterol synthesis: insights into the origin, evolution, and diversity of a key eukaryotic feature.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 137 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
137 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 296 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Insect Lipids: Structure, Classification and Function.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- The effects and potential mechanisms of statins on growth, development and pathogenicity in Botrytis cinerea.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2025Article
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- Pollen sterols are highly diverse but phylogenetically conserved.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- The Evolutionary History and Modern Diversity of Triterpenoid Cyclases.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The evolutionary history and modern diversity of triterpenoid cyclases.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Temperature-Sensitive Lipids Reveal Intraspecific Diversity in Bacteria Isolated from an Ancient Antarctic Microbial Mat.Microbial ecology · 2025Article
- Sterols in plant biologyCell surface (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- A geranylgeranyl reductase homolog required for cholesterol production in Myxococcota.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- Use of the D4H Probe to Track Sterols in Yeast.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2025Article
- Unusual Genomic and Biochemical Features ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization ofLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Loss of Sterol Biosynthesis in Economically Important Plant Pests and Pathogens: A Review of a Potential Target for Pest Control.Biomolecules · 2024Review
- Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes.PLoS biology · 2024Review
77 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The availability of complete genomes from a wide sampling of eukaryotic diversity has allowed the application of phylogenomics approaches to study the origin and evolution of unique eukaryotic cellular structures, but these are still poorly applied to study unique eukaryotic metabolic pathways. Sterols are a good example because they are an essential feature of eukaryotic membranes. The sterol pathway has been well dissected in vertebrates, fungi, and land plants. However, although different types of sterols have been identified in other eukaryotic lineages, their pathways have not been fully characterized. We have carried out an extensive analysis of the taxonomic distribution and phylogeny of the enzymes of the sterol pathway in a large sampling of eukaryotic lineages. This allowed us to tentatively indicate features of the sterol pathway in organisms where this has not been characterized and to point out a number of steps for which yet-to-discover enzymes may be at work. We also inferred that the last eukaryotic common ancestor already harbored a large panel of enzymes for sterol synthesis and that subsequent evolution over the eukaryotic tree occurred by tinkering, mainly by gene losses. We highlight a high capacity of sterol synthesis in the myxobacterium Plesiocystis pacifica, and we support the hypothesis that the few bacteria that harbor homologs of the sterol pathway have likely acquired these via horizontal gene transfer from eukaryotes. Finally, we propose a potential candidate for the elusive enzyme performing C-3 ketoreduction (ERG27 equivalent) in land plants and probably in other eukaryotic phyla.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.