Photosynthesis and the Origin of Life

@article{Hartman2004PhotosynthesisAT,
  title={Photosynthesis and the Origin of Life},
  author={Hyman Hartman},
  journal={Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere},
  year={2004},
  volume={28},
  pages={515-521}
}
  • H. Hartman
  • Published 1 October 1998
  • Biology
  • Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere
The origin and evolution of photosynthesis is considered to be the key to the origin of life. This eliminates the need for a soup as the synthesis of the bioorganics are to come from the fixation of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. No soup then no RNA world or Protein world. Cyanobacteria have been formed by the horizontal transfer of green sulfur bacterial photoreaction center genes by means of a plasmid into a purple photosynthetic bacterium. The fixation of carbon dioxide is considered to have… 
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66 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
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Background Citations
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66 Citations

The Evolution of Cyanobacteria and Photosynthesis
  • G. Drews
  • Biology, Environmental Science
  • 2011
Oxygenic photosynthesis, i.e. the biosynthesis of carbohydrate from CO2 supported by light-dependent ATP formation and production of O2, evolved very early, presumably about 2,300 million years…
Thinking About the Evolution of Photosynthesis
TLDR
The transition from anoxygenic to oxygenic photosynthesis took place when the cyanobacteria learned how to use water as an electron donor for carbon dioxide reduction, and before that, ferrous iron may have been the original source of reducing power.
Evolution of the 3-hydroxypropionate bicycle and recent transfer of anoxygenic photosynthesis into the Chloroflexi
Significance Photosynthesis supports life on our planet; however, we know very little about the origins of this metabolism. Anoxygenic photosynthesis existed prior to the evolution of its more…
‘Evolution of Photosynthesis’ (1970), re-examined thirty years later
  • J. Olson
  • Environmental Science, Biology
    Photosynthesis Research
  • 2004
TLDR
The original conviction that the evolution of photosynthesis was intimately connected with the origin of life has been replaced with the realization that photosynthesis may have been invented by the Bacteria after their divergence from the Archea.
From Ionizing Radiation to Photosynthesis
This chapter focuses on the driving forces of the origin and the evolution of the early anoxygenic photosynthesis before the onset of the oxygenic cyanobacterial photosynthesis 2.8–2.4 billion years…
The Symbiontic Nature of Metabolic Evolution
TLDR
A scheme for the evolution of the central metabolism with archaeal as well as eubacterial roots is proposed and a remarkable property of DEB theory for metabolic organization is that organisms of two species that exchange products can together follow a symbiogenic route such that the symbiosis behaves as a new organism that itself follows the DEB rules.
Energetics of the First Life
TLDR
It is argued that the evolutionarily relevant, continuous fluxes of reducing equivalents, which were needed for the syntheses of the first biomolecules, may have been provided by the inorganic photosynthesis and by the redox reactions within hot, iron-containing rocks.
Hydrogen metabolism of green algae: discovery and early research – a tribute to Hans Gaffron and his coworkers
TLDR
It is shown that the emergence of the present mechanistic concepts was closely linked to the changing perception of the process of photosynthetic water oxidation, and can be fueled by reducing equivalents derived from a photolysis of water as well as by an oxidation of internal and external organic molecules.
A cytochrome b origin of photosynthetic reaction centers: an evolutionary link between respiration and photosynthesis.
Phosphorylation and acylation transfer reactions: Clues to a dual origin of metabolism
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References

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