ArticleGenome biology and evolution2022
Reconstruction of Nitrogenase Predecessors Suggests Origin from Maturase-Like Proteins.
Article in Genome biology and evolution, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Function, Structure, and Regulation of Nitrogen Fixation-like Metalloproteins for Nitrogen, Energy, Carbon, and Sulfur Metabolism.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- Abiotic sources of fixed nitrogen sustained early ecosystems for several hundred million years after the origin of life.Science advances · 2026Article
- Biological use of molybdenum and tungsten stems back to 3.4 billion years ago.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Revisiting Eck and Dayhoff's Building Block Model of Ferredoxin Evolution on Dayhoff's 100th Birthday.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Article
- Ecological constraints and evolutionary trade-offs shape nitrogen fixation across habitats.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Comparative Dynamics Enables Discovery of Embedded Bacterial Ferredoxin Domains in Large Redox Enzymes.Proteins · 2025Article
- Article
- Origin of the RNA World in Cold Hadean Geothermal Fields Enriched in Zinc and Potassium: Abiogenesis as a Positive Fallout from the Moon-Forming Impact?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Discussion of the possibility of increasing the efficiency of photosynthesis using genetic and metabolic engineering methods.Biodesign research · 2025Review
- Nitrogen stable isotope fractionation by biological nitrogen fixation reveals cellular nitrogenase is diffusion limited.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Iron-molybdenum cofactor synthesis by a thermophilic nitrogenase devoid of the scaffold NifEN.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Exploring the influence of atmospheric COApplied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Cofactor maturase NifEN: A prototype ancient nitrogenase?Science advances · 2024Article
- Emergence of an Orphan Nitrogenase Protein Following Atmospheric Oxygenation.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Regulatory response to a hybrid ancestral nitrogenase inMicrobiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Early Nitrogenase Ancestors Encompassed Novel Active Site Diversity.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Early divergence of translation initiation and elongation factors.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2022Article
- Phylogenetically and catabolically diverse diazotrophs reside in deep-sea cold seep sediments.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Microbial NGeobiologyArticle
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3 authors.
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Abstract
The evolution of biological nitrogen fixation, uniquely catalyzed by nitrogenase enzymes, has been one of the most consequential biogeochemical innovations over life's history. Though understanding the early evolution of nitrogen fixation has been a longstanding goal from molecular, biogeochemical, and planetary perspectives, its origins remain enigmatic. In this study, we reconstructed the evolutionary histories of nitrogenases, as well as homologous maturase proteins that participate in the assembly of the nitrogenase active-site cofactor but are not able to fix nitrogen. We combined phylogenetic and ancestral sequence inference with an analysis of predicted functionally divergent sites between nitrogenases and maturases to infer the nitrogen-fixing capabilities of their shared ancestors. Our results provide phylogenetic constraints to the emergence of nitrogen fixation and are consistent with a model wherein nitrogenases emerged from maturase-like predecessors. Though the precise functional role of such a predecessor protein remains speculative, our results highlight evolutionary contingency as a significant factor shaping the evolution of a biogeochemically essential enzyme.
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