Evolution of heme biosynthesis in prokaryotes

Beschreibung

Modified tetrapyrroles are large cyclic macromolecules pivotal to a variety of biological processes, including electron transfer and microbial energy conservation solutions. Hemes b, a class of tetrapyrroles ubiquitous across all domains of life, play indispensable roles in these processes. For a long time, it has been assumed that heme biosynthesis exists as a sole conserved pathway in all organisms capable of synthesizing these compounds. However, additional pathways for heme biosynthesis have been unveiled since. Currently, there are three recognized heme biosynthesis pathways, each named after the key intermediate preceding the heme b formation.

Despite decades of research into heme b biosynthesis, no comprehensive large-scale evolutionary analyses of these pathways have been performed. Furthermore, the research was predominantly focused on heme biosynthesis and uptake within eukaryotes or well-studied prokaryotes, neglecting the less studied and newly discovered taxa. With the rapid technological developments in metagenomics and sequencing technologies over the past two decades, it became urgently necessary to conduct large-scale genomic analyses to obtain a more comprehensive representation of the organismal diversity derived from metagenomics. This project addresses this issue by employing methods of comparative genomics on metagenomic data to resolve the distribution, composition, and evolution of hemes biosynthesis pathways in prokaryotes. In this poster, we present an analysis of heme biosynthesis pathways across 35000 prokaryotic assemblies, offering insights into their evolution.

Zeitraum	27 Aug. 2024
Ereignistitel	22nd European Bioenergetics Conference
Veranstaltungstyp	Konferenz
Ort	Innsbruck, ÖsterreichAuf Karte anzeigen