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Paleoproterozoic sterol biosynthesis and the rise of oxygen
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Natural products preserved in the geological record can function as 'molecular fossils', providing insight into organisms and physiologies that existed in the deep past. One important group of molecular fossils is the steroidal hydrocarbons (steranes), which are the diagenetic remains of sterol lipids. Complex sterols with modified side chains are unique to eukaryotes, although simpler sterols can also be synthesized by a few bacteria. Sterol biosynthesis is an oxygen-intensive process; thus, the presence of complex steranes in ancient rocks not only signals the presence of eukaryotes, but also aerobic metabolic processes. In 1999, steranes were reported in 2.7 billion year (Gyr)-old rocks from the Pilbara Craton in Australia, suggesting a long delay between photosynthetic oxygen production and its accumulation in the atmosphere (also known as the Great Oxidation Event) 2.45-2.32 Gyr ago. However, the recent reappraisal and rejection of these steranes as contaminants pushes the oldest reported steranes forward to around 1.64 Gyr ago (ref. 6). Here we use a molecular clock approach to improve constraints on the evolution of sterol biosynthesis. We infer that stem eukaryotes shared functionally modern sterol biosynthesis genes with bacteria via horizontal gene transfer. Comparing multiple molecular clock analyses, we find that the maximum marginal probability for the divergence time of bacterial and eukaryal sterol biosynthesis genes is around 2.31 Gyr ago, concurrent with the most recent geochemical evidence for the Great Oxidation Event. Our results therefore indicate that simple sterol biosynthesis existed well before the diversification of living eukaryotes, substantially predating the oldest detected sterane biomarkers (approximately 1.64 Gyr ago), and furthermore, that the evolutionary history of sterol biosynthesis is tied to the first widespread availability of molecular oxygen in the ocean-atmosphere system.
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“Very recent evidence from phylogenetic analysis targeting sterol biosynthesis, an O2-requiring process, places the stem eukaryote split around the GOE (Gold et al., 2017)”
From Oxygenation, Life, and the Planetary System during Earth's Middle History: An Overview (2021) · cites this paper as Gold et al., 2017
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Metadata
- Authors
- Gold, D. A., Caron, A., Fournier, G. P., & Summons, R. E.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Summons, Roger E.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2017-03
- Volume
- 543
- Issue
- 7645
- Pages
- 420-423
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2594412381
- Cited by
- 129
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 6
- FWCI
- 10.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1338810)
- Simons Foundation
- Agouron Institute (1338810)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Protist diversity and phylogeny
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Keywords
- steranes, sterol biosynthesis, Great Oxidation Event, atmospheric oxygenation, horizontal gene transfer, molecular fossils, molecular clock, divergence time estimation, Pilbara Craton, early eukaryotes, Precambrian geochemistry
- MeSH terms
- Atmosphere, Bacteria, Oceans and Seas, Oxygen, Phylogeny, Seawater, Sterols, Gene Transfer, Horizontal, Synteny, History, Ancient, Eukaryota
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