The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles

@article{citeulike:2826350, abstract = {Virtually all nonequilibrium electron transfers on Earth are driven by a set of nanobiological machines composed largely of multimeric protein complexes associated with a small number of prosthetic groups. These machines evolved exclusively in microbes early in our planet's history yet, despite their antiquity, are highly conserved. Hence, although there is enormous genetic diversity in nature, there remains a relatively stable set of core genes coding for the major redox reactions essential for life and biogeochemical cycles. These genes created and coevolved with biogeochemical cycles and were passed from microbe to microbe primarily by horizontal gene transfer. A major challenge in the coming decades is to understand how these machines evolved, how they work, and the processes that control their activity on both molecular and planetary scales. 10.1126/science.1153213}, author = {Falkowski, Paul G. and Fenchel, Tom and Delong, Edward F. }, citeulike-article-id = {2826350}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1153213}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {biogeochemistry, microbial-ecology}, month = {May}, number = {5879}, pages = {1034--1039}, posted-at = {2008-05-23 17:25:16}, priority = {5}, title = {The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1153213}, volume = {320}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2826350 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2826350 TI - The Microbial Engines That Drive Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles JF - Science VL - 320 IS - 5879 SP - 1034 EP - 1039 N2 - Virtually all nonequilibrium electron transfers on Earth are driven by a set of nanobiological machines composed largely of multimeric protein complexes associated with a small number of prosthetic groups. These machines evolved exclusively in microbes early in our planet's history yet, despite their antiquity, are highly conserved. Hence, although there is enormous genetic diversity in nature, there remains a relatively stable set of core genes coding for the major redox reactions essential for life and biogeochemical cycles. These genes created and coevolved with biogeochemical cycles and were passed from microbe to microbe primarily by horizontal gene transfer. A major challenge in the coming decades is to understand how these machines evolved, how they work, and the processes that control their activity on both molecular and planetary scales. 10.1126/science.1153213 KW - biogeochemistry KW - microbial-ecology AU - Falkowski, Paul AU - Fenchel, Tom AU - Delong, Edward PY - 2008/05/23/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1153213 ER -