Photosynthesis/Addendum

Selected article abstracts bulleted

Evolution of Photosynthesis

Review of the evolution of photosynthesis.

• Energy conversion of sunlight by photosynthetic organisms has changed Earth and life on it.
• Photosynthesis arose early in Earth’s history, and the earliest forms of photosynthetic life were almost certainly anoxygenic (non-oxygen evolving).
• The invention of oxygenic photosynthesis and the subsequent rise of atmospheric oxygen approximately 2.4 billion years ago revolutionized the energetic and enzymatic fundamentals of life.
• The repercussions of this revolution are manifested in novel biosynthetic pathways of photosynthetic cofactors and the modification of electron carriers, pigments, and existing and alternative modes of photosynthetic carbon fixation.
• The evolutionary history of photosynthetic organisms is further complicated by lateral gene transfer that involved photosynthetic components as well as by endosymbiotic events.
• An expanding wealth of genetic information, together with biochemical, biophysical, and physiological data, reveals a mosaic of photosynthetic features.
• In combination, these data provide an increasingly robust framework to formulate and evaluate hypotheses concerning the origin and evolution of photosynthesis.