ArticleGenome biology and evolution2013
Chlorophyll biosynthesis gene evolution indicates photosystem gene duplication, not photosystem merger, at the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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41 citing papers in PubMed, 107 citations in OpenAlex.
- Photosynthesis Has Been Established Only Once-Evolution of Photosynthetic Reaction Center Proteins and Bacteriochlorophyll Biosynthesis.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Mid-day photomixotrophy byApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Illuminating the coevolution of photosynthesis and Bacteria.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Light dependent protochlorophyllide oxidoreductase: a succinct look.Physiology and molecular biology of plants : an international journal of functional plant biology · 2024Review
- Solar energy conversion by photosystem II: principles and structures.Photosynthesis research · 2023Review
- Phytol recycling: essential, yet not limiting for tomato fruit tocopherol accumulation under normal growing conditions.Plant molecular biology · 2023Article
- Translational Frameshifting in theMicroorganisms · 2022Article
- Phylum Gemmatimonadota and Its Role in the Environment.Microorganisms · 2022Review
- Article
- The Archean origin of oxygenic photosynthesis and extant cyanobacterial lineages.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Photosynthetic Systems Suggest an Evolutionary Pathway to Diderms.Acta biotheoretica · 2021Article
- Recent advances in the structural diversity of reaction centers.Photosynthesis research · 2021Article
- Time-resolved comparative molecular evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Bioenergetics · 2021Article
- Microbial and Genetic Resources for Cobalamin (Vitamin B12) Biosynthesis: From Ecosystems to Industrial Biotechnology.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Complex Evolution of Light-Dependent Protochlorophyllide Oxidoreductases in Aerobic Anoxygenic Phototrophs: Origin, Phylogeny, and Function.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Article
- A phylogenetically novel cyanobacterium most closely related to Gloeobacter.The ISME journal · 2020Article
- Multidomain ribosomal protein trees and the planctobacterial origin of neomura (eukaryotes, archaebacteria).Protoplasma · 2020Review
- Genomic and transcriptomic evidence of light-sensing, porphyrin biosynthesis, Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle, and urea production in Bathyarchaeota.Microbiome · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
An open question regarding the evolution of photosynthesis is how cyanobacteria came to possess the two reaction center (RC) types, Type I reaction center (RCI) and Type II reaction center (RCII). The two main competing theories in the foreground of current thinking on this issue are that either 1) RCI and RCII are related via lineage divergence among anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria and became merged in cyanobacteria via an event of large-scale lateral gene transfer (also called "fusion" theories) or 2) the two RC types are related via gene duplication in an ancestral, anoxygenic but protocyanobacterial phototroph that possessed both RC types before making the transition to using water as an electron donor. To distinguish between these possibilities, we studied the evolution of the core (bacterio)chlorophyll biosynthetic pathway from protoporphyrin IX (Proto IX) up to (bacterio)chlorophyllide a. The results show no dichotomy of chlorophyll biosynthesis genes into RCI- and RCII-specific chlorophyll biosynthetic clades, thereby excluding models of fusion at the origin of cyanobacteria and supporting the selective-loss hypothesis. By considering the cofactor demands of the pathway and the source genes from which several steps in chlorophyll biosynthesis are derived, we infer that the cell that first synthesized chlorophyll was a cobalamin-dependent, heme-synthesizing, diazotrophic anaerobe.
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