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Molecular Evidence for the Early Evolution of Photosynthesis
Jin Xiong,1William M. Fischer,1Kazuhito Inoue,2Masaaki Nakahara,2Carl E. Bauer1*
The origin and evolution of photosynthesis have
long remained enigmatic due to a lack of sequence information of
photosynthesisgenes across the entire photosynthetic domain. To probe
earlyevolutionary history of photosynthesis, we obtained new sequenceinformation of a number of photosynthesis genes from the greensulfur
bacterium Chlorobium tepidum and the green nonsulfur
bacteriumChloroflexus aurantiacus. A total of 31 open
reading frames thatencode enzymes involved in
bacteriochlorophyll/porphyrin biosynthesis,carotenoid biosynthesis,
and photosynthetic electron transferwere identified in about 100 kilobase pairs of genomic sequence.Phylogenetic analyses of multiple
magnesium-tetrapyrrole biosynthesisgenes using a combination of
distance, maximum parsimony, andmaximum likelihood methods indicate
that heliobacteria are closestto the last common ancestor of all
oxygenic photosynthetic lineagesand that green sulfur bacteria and
green nonsulfur bacteria areeach other's closest relatives. Parsimony
and distance analysesfurther identify purple bacteria as the earliest
emerging photosyntheticlineage. These results challenge previous
conclusions based on16S ribosomal RNA and Hsp60/Hsp70
analyses that green nonsulfurbacteria or heliobacteria are the
earliest phototrophs. The overallconsensus of our phylogenetic
analysis, that bacteriochlorophyllbiosynthesis evolved before
chlorophyll biosynthesis, also arguesagainst the long-held Granick
hypothesis.
1 Department of Biology, Indiana University,
Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
2 Department of
Biological Sciences, Kanagawa University, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa,
259-1293, Japan.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
cbauer{at}bio.indiana.edu
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