Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39558108›Full record

ArticleThe EMBO journal2025

Layered entrenchment maintains essentiality in the evolution of Form I Rubisco complexes.

Luca Schulz, Jan Zarzycki, Wieland Steinchen, Georg K A Hochberg, Tobias J Erb

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The EMBO journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
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

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Rubisco kinetic acclimation at the holoenzyme level.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  4. Evolutionary cell biology comes of age.Journal of cell science · 2025
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
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

5 authors.

Luca SchulzDepartment of Biochemistry & Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch Straße 10, 35043, Marburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-4796-2587
Jan ZarzyckiDepartment of Biochemistry & Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch Straße 10, 35043, Marburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-6307-6497
Wieland SteinchenCenter for Synthetic Microbiology (SYNMIKRO), Philipps University Marburg, Karl-von-Frisch Straße 14, 35043, Marburg, Germany.
Georg K A HochbergDepartment of Biochemistry & Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch Straße 10, 35043, Marburg, Germany. georg.hochberg@mpi-marburg.mpg.de.ORCID 0000-0002-7155-0451
Tobias J ErbDepartment of Biochemistry & Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch Straße 10, 35043, Marburg, Germany. toerb@mpi-marburg.mpg.de.ORCID 0000-0003-3685-0894

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Protein complexes composed of strictly essential subunits are abundant in nature and often arise through the gradual complexification of ancestral precursor proteins. Essentiality can arise through the accumulation of changes that are tolerated in the complex state but would be deleterious for the standalone complex components. While this theoretical framework to explain how essentiality arises has been proposed long ago, it is unclear which factors cause essentiality to persist over evolutionary timescales. In this work we show that the central enzyme of photosynthesis, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco), can easily start to depend on a newly recruited interaction partner through multiple, genetically distinct mechanisms that affect stability, solubility, and catalysis. We demonstrate that layering multiple mechanisms of essentiality can lead to its persistence, even if any given mechanism reverts. More broadly, our work highlights that new interaction partners can drastically re-shape which substitutions are tolerated in the proteins they are recruited into. This can lead to the evolution of multilayered essentiality through the exploration of areas of sequence space that are only accessible in the complex state.

Indexed as

Evolution, MolecularRibulose-Bisphosphate CarboxylasePhotosynthesisRibulose-Bisphosphate CarboxylaseEvolutionary BiochemistryEvolution of EssentialityLayered DependenceProtein Complex EvolutionRubisco

Identifiers

PMID39558108
PMCPMC11696622

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Registered trials

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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.