Linked Life Data

13679914

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/13679914

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
6955
pubmed:dateCreated
2003-9-18
pubmed:databankReference
pubmed:abstractText
Features of the physical environment surrounding an ancestral organism can be inferred by reconstructing sequences of ancient proteins made by those organisms, resurrecting these proteins in the laboratory, and measuring their properties. Here, we resurrect candidate sequences for elongation factors of the Tu family (EF-Tu) found at ancient nodes in the bacterial evolutionary tree, and measure their activities as a function of temperature. The ancient EF-Tu proteins have temperature optima of 55-65 degrees C. This value seems to be robust with respect to uncertainties in the ancestral reconstruction. This suggests that the ancient bacteria that hosted these particular genes were thermophiles, and neither hyperthermophiles nor mesophiles. This conclusion can be compared and contrasted with inferences drawn from an analysis of the lengths of branches in trees joining proteins from contemporary bacteria, the distribution of thermophily in derived bacterial lineages, the inferred G + C content of ancient ribosomal RNA, and the geological record combined with assumptions concerning molecular clocks. The study illustrates the use of experimental palaeobiochemistry and assumptions about deep phylogenetic relationships between bacteria to explore the character of ancient life.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Sep
pubmed:issn
1476-4687
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
18
pubmed:volume
425
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
285-8
pubmed:dateRevised
2006-11-15
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2003
pubmed:articleTitle
Inferring the palaeoenvironment of ancient bacteria on the basis of resurrected proteins.
pubmed:affiliation
NASA Astrobiology Institute, Gainesville, Florida 32611-7200, USA. gaucher@ufl.edu
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S., Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.