Was nitric oxide the first deep electron sink?

Anne-Lise Ducluzeau, Robert van Lis, Simon Duval, Barbara Schoepp-Cothenet, Michael J Russell, Wolfgang Nitschke

Journal: Trends in biochemical sciences 2009;34(1):9-15

PMID: 19008107

Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

Evolutionary histories of enzymes involved in chemiosmotic energy conversion indicate that a strongly oxidizing substrate was available to the last universal common ancestor before the divergence of Bacteria and Archaea. According to palaeogeochemical evidence, O(2) was not present beyond trace amounts on the early Earth. Based on recent phylogenetic, enzymatic and geochemical results, we propose that, in the earliest Archaean, nitric oxide (NO) and its derivatives nitrate and nitrite served as strongly oxidizing substrates driving the evolution of a bioenergetic pathway related to modern dissimilatory denitrification. Aerobic respiration emerged later from within this ancestral pathway via adaptation of the enzyme NO reductase to its new substrate, dioxygen.

Address: Laboratoire de Bioénergétique et Ingénierie des Protéines, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UPR9036, IFR77, Marseille Cedex 20, France.

DOI: 10.1016/j.tibs.2008.10.005

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MeSH Terms: Archaea, Biological Evolution, Cytochromes b, Electron Transport Complex III, Electrons, Evolution, Molecular, Models, Biological, Models, Chemical, Models, Molecular, Nitric Oxide, Oxidoreductases, Oxygen, Phylogeny, Substrate Specificity, Tyrosine