ArticleNature communications2025
A battle against arsenic toxicity by Earth's earliest complex life forms.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Elemental Analysis of Maha Kumbh-2025 Water Along With Intercomparison With Other Water Resources Using Synchrotron-Assisted Total-Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis: A Case Study.Water environment research : a research publication of the Water Environment Federation · 2026Article
- Pyrite morphology and sulfur isotopes refine taphonomic models for the 2.1 Ga Francevillian biota, Gabon.Scientific reports · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The toxicity of arsenic has challenged life for billions of years, but the timing of when complex organisms first evolved strategies to cope with this threat remains elusive. Here, we study 2.1-billion-year-old (Ga) Francevillian macrofossils, some of Earth's earliest complex life forms, to establish their biogenicity and to ascertain how they managed arsenic toxicity. The studied specimens thrived in low-arsenic marine waters, yet displayed strikingly high levels of arsenic, which was actively sequestered in specialized compartments in their bodies to mitigate toxicity. Upon their death, arsenic was released and incorporated into pyrite nuclei. The patterns observed in the fossils are distinct from abiotic concretions but similar to some seen in later eumetazoans, reinforcing their biological affinity. Our findings highlight that early complex life faced significant arsenic stress, even in low-concentration marine environments, which prompted the development of essential survival mechanisms.
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