Photosynthesis and the Origin of Life

@article{Hartman2004PhotosynthesisAT,
  title={Photosynthesis and the Origin of Life},
  author={H. Hartman},
  journal={Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere},
  year={2004},
  volume={28},
  pages={515-521}
}
  • H. Hartman
  • Published 2004
  • Biology, Medicine
  • 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… Expand
View on Springer
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
62 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
7
Background Citations
28
Methods Citations
1
Results Citations
1

62 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

The Evolution of Cyanobacteria and Photosynthesis
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… Expand
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. Expand
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… Expand
‘Evolution of Photosynthesis’ (1970), re-examined thirty years later
  • J. Olson
  • Biology, Medicine
  • 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. Expand
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… Expand
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. Expand
Energetics of the First Life
Life can exist only when supported by energy flow(s). Here, the tentative mechanisms of coupling between the natural energy fluxes and the first life forms are discussed. It is argued that the… Expand
A cytochrome b origin of photosynthetic reaction centers: an evolutionary link between respiration and photosynthesis.
TLDR
It is likely that cytochrome b is the evolutionary precursor for type II reaction Center apoproteins, and a novel "reaction center apoprotein early" hypothesis is proposed to account for the development of photosynthetic reaction center holoproteinins. Expand
Phosphorylation and acylation transfer reactions: Clues to a dual origin of metabolism
  • M. Freire
  • Computer Science, Medicine
  • Biosyst.
  • 2020
TLDR
The proposed overview suggests that phosphorylation and acylation transfer reactions would have arisen independently and forged two distinct chemical systems that provided the phosphorylated and carboxylated intermediates used for the synthesis of the corresponding polymers. Expand
An Alternate Hypothesis for the Origin of Mitochondria
TLDR
This work brings together arguments such as parsimony, timing of evolutionary and geological events, structural and functional similarity of cyanobacterial membranes to both the organellar membranes and molecular evidence based on nucleotide sequence comparisons, so as to create the plausibility of this alternate hypothesis. Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 10 REFERENCES
Conjectures and reveries
  • H. Hartman
  • Chemistry, Medicine
  • Photosynthesis Research
  • 2004
TLDR
The chromophores evolved from ferrous ion through the quinones, carotenoids, phycobilins to chlorophyll, which implies that photosynthesis began in the UV and evolved through the blue, yellow, orange into the red. Expand
Origin and early evolution of photosynthesis
TLDR
The evolutionary relationships of the reaction center complexes found in all the classes of currently existing organisms have been analyzed using sequence analysis and biophysical measurements and it is indicated that all reaction centers fall into two basic groups, those with pheophytin and a pair of quinones as early acceptors, and those with iron sulfur clusters asEarly acceptors. Expand
Carbon dioxide assimilation in oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis
  • B. Buchanan
  • Biology, Medicine
  • Photosynthesis Research
  • 2004
TLDR
Thioredoxins, an ubiquitous group of low molecular weight proteins with catalytically active thiols, are described in some detail, notably their role in regulating the reductive pentose phosphate cycle of oxygenic photosynthesis and their potential use as markers to trace the evolutionary development of photosynthesis. Expand
SPECULATIONS ON THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS
  • S. Granick
  • Chemistry, Medicine
  • Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
  • 1957
TLDR
The possible origins of photosynthesis in relation to hypotheses on the origin of life is discussed and it is proposed that the first organization of preprotoplasm would be a primitive energy-conversion unit that could perform the elementary processes of photoynthesis and respiration. Expand
Anaerobic oxidation of ferrous iron by purple bacteria, a new type of phototrophic metabolism
TLDR
Anoxic iron-rich sediment samples that had been stored in the light showed development of brown, rusty patches and the existence of ferrous iron-oxidizing anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria may offer an explanation for the deposition of early banded-iron formations in an assumed anoxic biosphere in Archean times. Expand
Retrobiosynthetic analysis of carbon fixation in the phototrophic eubacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus.
TLDR
There is evidence for a new cyclic autotrophic pathway in which acetyl-CoA is converted to 3-hydroxypropionate and further to succinate and malate, and the 13C labeling and coupling patterns suggest a novel carbon fixation pathway via 3-Hydroxy Propionate. Expand
Contrasting evolutionary histories of chloroplast thioredoxins f and m.
TLDR
The results indicate that, during evolution, thioredoxin m of contemporary photosynthetic eukaryotic cells was derived from a prokaryotic symbiont, whereas thiOREDoxin f descended from an ancestral eukARYote common to plants and animals. Expand
The oldest records of photosynthesis.
  • S. Awramik
  • Biology, Medicine
  • Photosynthesis research
  • 1992
TLDR
These Early Archean stromatolites suggest that phototrophs evolved by 3500 million years ago, and would indicate that nearly all prokaryotic phyla had already evolved and that proKaryotes diversified rapidly on the early Earth. Expand
Isolation, sequence, and expression in Escherichia coli of an unusual thioredoxin gene from the cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120
TLDR
The Anabaena strain 7120 thioredoxin gene was expressed in E. coli, and the protein was purified by assaying for protein disulfide reductase activity, using insulin as a substrate. Expand
A 3,800-million-year isotopic record of life from carbon in sedimentary rocks
An increased ratio of 12C to 13C, an indicator of the principal carbon-fixing reaction of photosynthesis, is found in sedimentary organic matter dating back to almost four thousand million years… Expand