Three enzymes governed the rise of O₂ on Earth

Current views of O₂ accumulation in Earth history depict three phases: The onset of O₂ production by ∼2.4 billion years ago; 2 billion years of stasis at ∼1 % of modern atmospheric levels; and a rising phase, starting about 500 million years ago, in which oxygen eventually reached modern values. Purely geochemical mechanisms have been proposed to account for this tripartite time course of Earth oxygenation. In particular the second phase, the long period of stasis between the advent of O₂ and the late rise to modern levels, has posed a puzzle. Proposed solutions involve Earth processes (geochemical, ecosystem, day length). Here we suggest that Earth oxygenation was not determined by geochemical processes. Rather it resulted from emergent biological innovations associated with photosynthesis and the activity of only three enzymes: 1) The oxygen evolving complex of cyanobacteria that makes O₂; 2) Nitrogenase, with its inhibition by O₂ causing two billion years of oxygen level stasis; 3) Cellulose synthase of land plants, which caused mass deposition and burial of carbon, thus removing an oxygen sink and therefore increasing atmospheric O₂. These three enzymes are endogenously produced by, and contained within, cells that have the capacity for exponential growth. The catalytic properties of these three enzymes paved the path of Earth's atmospheric oxygenation, requiring no help from Earth other than the provision of water, CO₂, salts, colonizable habitats, and sunlight.