Innovation and tinkering in the evolution of oxidases.

ABSTRACT: Although molecular oxygen is a relative newcomer to the biosphere, it has had a profound impact on metabolism. About 700 oxygen-dependent enzymatic reactions are known, the vast majority of which emerged only after the appearance of oxygen in the biosphere, circa 3 billion years ago. Oxygen was a major driving force for evolutionary innovation-~60% of all known oxygen-dependent enzyme families emerged as such; that is, the founding ancestor was an O₂ -dependent enzyme. The other 40% seem to have diverged by tinkering from pre-existing proteins whose function was not related to oxygen. Here, we focus on the latter. We describe transitions from various enzyme classes, as well as from non-enzymatic proteins, and we explore these transitions in terms of catalytic chemistry, metaboli

SUBMITTER: Jablonska J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9040561 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature