ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2020
Origin and Evolution of Polycyclic Triterpene Synthesis.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Marine Cold Seep ANME-2/SRB Consortia Produce Their Lipid Biomass From Inorganic Carbon.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- The Evolutionary History and Modern Diversity of Triterpenoid Cyclases.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The evolutionary history and modern diversity of triterpenoid cyclases.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Sterols in plant biologyCell surface (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- A geranylgeranyl reductase homolog required for cholesterol production in Myxococcota.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- Horizontal acquisition of prokaryotic hopanoid biosynthesis reorganizes membrane physiology driving lifestyle innovation in a eukaryote.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Chimeric origins and dynamic evolution of central carbon metabolism in eukaryotes.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Bacterial estrogenesis without oxygen: Wood-Ljungdahl pathway likely contributed to the emergence of estrogens in the biosphere.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A century of research on the Planctomycetota bacterial phylum, previously known as Planctomycetes.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- On the origin of the nucleus: a hypothesis.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2023Review
- Integration of (S)-2,3-oxidosqualene enables E. coli to become Iron Man E. coli with improved overall tolerance.Biotechnology for biofuels and bioproducts · 2023Article
- Genetics re-establish the utility of 2-methylhopanes as cyanobacterial biomarkers before 750 million years ago.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Article
- Review
- Comparative genomics reveals the diversification of triterpenoid biosynthesis and origin of ocotillol-type triterpenes in Panax.Plant communications · 2023Article
- De novo cholesterol biosynthesis in bacteria.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Structure Elucidation and Biosynthesis of Nannosterols A and B, Myxobacterial Sterols fromJournal of natural products · 2023Article
- Sterol methyltransferases in uncultured bacteria complicate eukaryotic biomarker interpretations.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The squalene route to C30 carotenoid biosynthesis and the origins of carotenoid biosynthetic pathways.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Polycyclic triterpenes are members of the terpene family produced by the cyclization of squalene. The most representative polycyclic triterpenes are hopanoids and sterols, the former are mostly found in bacteria, whereas the latter are largely limited to eukaryotes, albeit with a growing number of bacterial exceptions. Given their important role and omnipresence in most eukaryotes, contrasting with their scant representation in bacteria, sterol biosynthesis was long thought to be a eukaryotic innovation. Thus, their presence in some bacteria was deemed to be the result of lateral gene transfer from eukaryotes. Elucidating the origin and evolution of the polycyclic triterpene synthetic pathways is important to understand the role of these compounds in eukaryogenesis and their geobiological value as biomarkers in fossil records. Here, we have revisited the phylogenies of the main enzymes involved in triterpene synthesis, performing gene neighborhood analysis and phylogenetic profiling. Squalene can be biosynthesized by two different pathways containing the HpnCDE or Sqs proteins. Our results suggest that the HpnCDE enzymes are derived from carotenoid biosynthesis ones and that they assembled in an ancestral squalene pathway in bacteria, while remaining metabolically versatile. Conversely, the Sqs enzyme is prone to be involved in lateral gene transfer, and its emergence is possibly related to the specialization of squalene biosynthesis. The biosynthesis of hopanoids seems to be ancestral in the Bacteria domain. Moreover, no triterpene cyclases are found in Archaea, invoking a potential scenario in which eukaryotic genes for sterol biosynthesis assembled from ancestral bacterial contributions in early eukaryotic lineages.
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