Arsenic(III) Fuels Anoxygenic Photosynthesis in Hot Spring Biofilms from Mono Lake, California
- 15 August 2008
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 321 (5891), 967-970
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1160799
Abstract
Phylogenetic analysis indicates that microbial arsenic metabolism is ancient and probably extends back to the primordial Earth. In microbial biofilms growing on the rock surfaces of anoxic brine pools fed by hot springs containing arsenite and sulfide at high concentrations, we discovered light-dependent oxidation of arsenite [As(III)] to arsenate [As(V)] occurring under anoxic conditions. The communities were composed primarily of Ectothiorhodospira -like purple bacteria or Oscillatoria -like cyanobacteria. A pure culture of a photosynthetic bacterium grew as a photoautotroph when As(III) was used as the sole photosynthetic electron donor. The strain contained genes encoding a putative As(V) reductase but no detectable homologs of the As(III) oxidase genes of aerobic chemolithotrophs, suggesting a reverse functionality for the reductase. Production of As(V) by anoxygenic photosynthesis probably opened niches for primordial Earth's first As(V)-respiring prokaryotes.Keywords
This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit:
- Autecology of an Arsenite Chemolithotroph: Sulfide Constraints on Function and Distribution in a Geothermal SpringApplied and Environmental Microbiology, 2007
- Biosynthesis of 2-methylbacteriohopanepolyols by an anoxygenic phototrophProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007
- Nitrite, an Electron Donor for Anoxygenic PhotosynthesisScience, 2007
- Alkalilimnicola ehrlichii sp. nov., a novel, arsenite-oxidizing haloalkaliphilic gammaproteobacterium capable of chemoautotrophic or heterotrophic growth with nitrate or oxygen as the electron acceptorInternational Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, 2007
- Detection, diversity and expression of aerobic bacterial arsenite oxidase genesEnvironmental Microbiology, 2007
- Arsenic and Selenium in Microbial MetabolismAnnual Review of Microbiology, 2006
- The Ecology of ArsenicScience, 2003
- Archean Molecular Fossils and the Early Rise of EukaryotesScience, 1999
- The Biogeochemistry of Hypersaline Microbial MatsPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1995
- Sources and flux of natural gases from Mono Lake, CaliforniaGeochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 1987