Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31113897›Full record

ArticlemBio2019

Timing the Evolutionary Advent of Cyanobacteria and the Later Great Oxidation Event Using Gene Phylogenies of a Sunscreen.

Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Jonathan Lombard, Tanya Soule, Sean Dunaj, Steven H Wu, Martin F Wojciechowski

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in mBio, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
30citing papers in PubMed
9.2field-weighted citation impact, top 2% 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

30 citing papers in PubMed, 87 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Review
  4. Article
  5. Review
  6. Article
  7. Cyanobacteria Under UV Radiation: General Insights into Stress Responses.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025
    Review
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Article
  11. A novel quinone biosynthetic pathway illuminates the evolution of aerobic metabolism.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  12. Article
  13. Review
  14. Review
  15. Review
  16. Review
  17. Article
  18. Review
  19. Article
  20. Insights into the biosynthesis pathway of phenolic compounds in microalgae.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Ferran Garcia-PichelSchool of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA ferran@asu.edu.
Jonathan LombardDepartment of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Tanya SouleDepartment of Biology, Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-2032-6422
Sean DunajDepartment of Biology, Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA.
Steven H WuCenter for Personalized Diagnostic, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.
Martin F WojciechowskiSchool of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.
Arizona State University · USIndiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne · USUppsala University · SE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The biosynthesis of the unique cyanobacterial (oxyphotobacterial) indole-phenolic UVA sunscreen, scytonemin, is coded for in a conserved operon that contains both core metabolic genes and accessory, aromatic amino acid biosynthesis genes dedicated to supplying scytonemin's precursors. Comparative genomics shows conservation of this operon in many, but not all, cyanobacterial lineages. Phylogenetic analyses of the operon's aromatic amino acid genes indicate that five of them were recruited into the operon after duplication events of their respective housekeeping cyanobacterial cognates. We combined the fossil record of cyanobacteria and relaxed molecular clock models to obtain multiple estimates of these duplication events, setting a minimum age for the evolutionary advent of scytonemin at 2.1 ± 0.3 billion years. The same analyses were used to estimate the advent of cyanobacteria as a group (and thus the appearance of oxygenic photosynthesis), at 3.6 ± 0.2 billion years before present.

Indexed as

Evolution, MolecularPhylogenyBiosynthetic PathwaysCyanobacteriaFossilsIndolesPhenolsSunscreening AgentsIndolesPhenolsscytoneminSunscreening Agentscyanobacteriadeep evolutionsecondary metabolismUV photobiology

Identifiers

PMID31113897
PMCPMC6529634
OpenAlexW2945028596

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
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.