Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 13, 2025
06:26
Isolation and Characterization of Intact Phycobilisome in Cyanobacteria
Published on: November 10, 2021
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Evolution of far-red light photoacclimation in cyanobacteria
Laura A Antonaru1, Cecilia Rad-Menéndez2, Susan Mbedi3
1Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK; Institute for Experimental Physics, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Current Biology : CB
|May 14, 2025
Summary
Far-red light photoacclimation (FaRLiP) in cyanobacteria, involving unique chlorophylls, likely emerged early in Earth's history. This ancient photosynthetic process may have significantly influenced early planetary environments and life.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Biogeochemistry
Background:
- Cyanobacteria revolutionized Earth's atmosphere via oxygenation and are crucial for global carbon and nitrogen cycles.
- A subset of cyanobacteria exhibits far-red light photoacclimation (FaRLiP), utilizing red-shifted chlorophylls (d and f) and specialized photosynthetic machinery.
- The evolutionary origins and early environmental connections of the FaRLiP gene cluster remain largely unknown.
Purpose of the Study:
- To elucidate the origin and evolutionary history of the FaRLiP gene cluster in cyanobacteria.
- To investigate the ancient role of far-red light-driven photosynthesis in early Earth environments.
- To reconstruct the ancestral FaRLiP gene cluster and understand its long-term conservation.
Main Methods:
- Extensive mining of genomic and metagenomic data to identify new FaRLiP gene sequences and clusters.
- High-resolution phylogenetics using multiple gene trees and analysis of gene arrangement conservation.
- Phylogenetic tree network analysis to infer evolutionary relationships and ancestral states.
Main Results:
- Over 600 new FaRLiP gene sequences and 51 new gene clusters were identified, significantly expanding the known diversity.
- Phylogenetic analyses strongly support the early emergence of FaRLiP during cyanobacterial evolution.
- FaRLiP diversity is currently observed in modern microbialites, suggesting a long history linked to microbial mat and stromatolite formation.
- Reconstruction of the ancestral FaRLiP cluster revealed conserved features spanning billions of years.
Conclusions:
- The FaRLiP process likely originated early in cyanobacterial evolution, potentially in the Paleoproterozoic era.
- Far-red light-driven oxygenic photosynthesis may have played a critical role in Earth's early biogeochemical cycles and habitability.
- The study provides a high-resolution evolutionary framework for understanding this unique photosynthetic adaptation.
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