Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 15 April 1966:
Vol. 152. no. 3720, pp. 363 - 366
DOI: 10.1126/science.152.3720.363
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Evolution of the Structure of Ferredoxin Based on Living Relics of Primitive Amino Acid Sequences

Richard V. Eck 1 and Margaret O. Dayhoff 1

1 National Biolmedical Research Foundation, 8600 16th Street, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

The structure of present-day ferredoxin, with its simple, inorganic active site and its functions basic to photon-energy utilization, suggests the incorporation of its prototype into metabolism very early during biochemical evolution, even before complex proteins and the complete modern genetic code existed. The information in the amino acid sequence of ferredoxin enables us to propose a detailed reconstruction of its evolutionary history. Ferredoxin has evolved by doubling a shorter protein, which may have contained only eight of the simplest amino acids. This shorter ancestor in turn developed from a repeating sequence of the amino acids alanine, aspartic acid or proline, serine, and glycine. We explain the persistence of living relics of this primordial structure by invoking a conservative principle in evolutionary biochemistry: The processes of natural selection severely inhibit any change a well-adapted system on which several other essential components depend.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Darwinian evolution in the light of genomics.
E. V. Koonin (2009)
Nucleic Acids Res. 37, 1011-1034
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
From volcanic origins of chemoautotrophic life to Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya.
G. Wachtershauser (2006)
Phil Trans R Soc B 361, 1787-1808
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The onset and early evolution of life.
M. J. Russell and A. J. Hall (2006)
Geological Society of America Memoirs 198, 1-32
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
100th Anniversary Special Paper: * > On Hydrothermal Convection Systems and the Emergence of Life.
M. J. Russell, A. J. Hall, A. J. Boyce, and A. E. Fallick (2005)
Economic Geology 100, 419-438
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Origins of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, mitochondria, and chloroplasts.
R. Schwartz and M. Dayhoff (1978)
Science 199, 395-403
   PDF »
Evolution of a gene. Multiple genes for LDH isozymes provide a model of the evolution of gene structure, function and regulation.
C. Markert, J. Shaklee, and G. Whitt (1975)
Science 189, 102-114
   PDF »
Phenylalanine and Tyrosine Synthesis under Primitive Earth Conditions.
N. Friedmann and S. L. Miller (1969)
Science 166, 766-767
   Abstract »    PDF »
Aldolase and Protease: Unsuspected Structural Homology.
D. E. Morse and B. L. Horecker (1968)
Science 161, 813
   PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)