Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29177446›Full record

ReviewFEMS microbiology reviews2018

A physiological perspective on the origin and evolution of photosynthesis.

William F Martin, Donald A Bryant, J Thomas Beatty

Open access · hybridAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in FEMS microbiology reviews, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 67 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
67citing papers in PubMed
6.0field-weighted citation impact, top 3% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

67 citing papers in PubMed, 151 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
  2. Review
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. What the earliest evidence for life tells us about the early evolution of the biosphere.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Review
  13. Molecular glue for phycobilisome attachment to photosystem II inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. Illuminating the coevolution of photosynthesis and Bacteria.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Review
  20. Article

7 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.

William F MartinInstitute for Molecular Evolution, University of Düsseldorf, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
Donald A BryantDepartment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
J Thomas BeattyDepartment of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada.
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf · DEPennsylvania State University · USUniversity of British Columbia · CA

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The origin and early evolution of photosynthesis are reviewed from an ecophysiological perspective. Earth's first ecosystems were chemotrophic, fueled by geological H2 at hydrothermal vents and, required flavin-based electron bifurcation to reduce ferredoxin for CO2 fixation. Chlorophyll-based phototrophy (chlorophototrophy) allowed autotrophs to generate reduced ferredoxin without electron bifurcation, providing them access to reductants other than H2. Because high-intensity, short-wavelength electromagnetic radiation at Earth's surface would have been damaging for the first chlorophyll (Chl)-containing cells, photosynthesis probably arose at hydrothermal vents under low-intensity, long-wavelength geothermal light. The first photochemically active pigments were possibly Zn-tetrapyrroles. We suggest that (i) after the evolution of red-absorbing Chl-like pigments, the first light-driven electron transport chains reduced ferredoxin via a type-1 reaction center (RC) progenitor with electrons from H2S; (ii) photothioautotrophy, first with one RC and then with two, was the bridge between H2-dependent chemolithoautotrophy and water-splitting photosynthesis; (iii) photothiotrophy sustained primary production in the photic zone of Archean oceans; (iv) photosynthesis arose in an anoxygenic cyanobacterial progenitor; (v) Chl a is the ancestral Chl; and (vi), anoxygenic chlorophototrophic lineages characterized so far acquired, by horizontal gene transfer, RCs and Chl biosynthesis with or without autotrophy, from the architects of chlorophototrophy-the cyanobacterial lineage.

Indexed as

Biological EvolutionArchaeaCyanobacteriaPhotosynthesisPigments, BiologicalPigments, Biological

Identifiers

PMID29177446
PMCPMC5972617
OpenAlexW2770053020

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.