Enzyme phylogenies as markers for the oxidation state of the environment: the case of respiratory arsenate reductase and related enzymes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Phylogenies of certain bioenergetic enzymes have proved to be useful tools for deducing evolutionary ancestry of bioenergetic pathways and their relationship to geochemical parameters of the environment. Our previous phylogenetic analysis of arsenite oxidase, the molybdopterin enzyme responsible for the biological oxidation of arsenite to arsenate, indicated its probable emergence prior to the Archaea/Bacteria split more than 3 billion years ago, in line with the geochemical fact that arsenite was present in biological habitats on the early Earth. Respiratory arsenate reductase (Arr), another molybdopterin enzyme involved in microbial arsenic metabolism, serves as terminal oxidase, and is thus situated at the opposite end of bioenergetic electron transfer chains as compa

SUBMITTER: Duval S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2500031 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature