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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1995

Isolation, characterization, and primary structure of rubredoxin from the photosynthetic bacterium, Heliobacillus mobilis.

Rubredoxin is a small nonheme iron protein that serves as an electron carrier in bacterial systems. Rubredoxin has now been isolated and characterized from the strictly anaerobic phototroph, Heliobacillus mobilis. THe molecular mass (5671.3 Da from the amino acid sequence) was confirmed and partial formylation of the N-terminal methionyl residue was established by matrix-assisted laser desorption mass spectroscopy. The complete 52-amino-acid sequence was determined by a combination of N-terminal sequencing by Edman degradation and C-terminal sequencing by a novel method using carboxypeptidase treatment in conjunction with amino acid analysis and laser desorption time of flight mass spectrometry. The molar absorption coefficient of Hc. mobilis rubredoxin at 490 nm is 6.9 mM-1 cm-1 and the midpoint redox potential at pH 8.0 is -46 mV. The EPR spectrum of the oxidized form shows resonances at g = 9.66 and 4.30 due to a high-spin ferric iron. The amino acid sequence is homologous to those of rubredoxins from other species, in particular, the gram-positive bacteria, and the phototrophic green sulfur bacteria, and the evolutionary implications of this are discussed.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1993

Habitable zones around main sequence stars.

A one-dimensional climate model is used to estimate the width of the habitable zone (HZ) around our Sun and around other main sequence stars. Our basic premise is that we are dealing with Earth-like planets with CO2/H2O/N2 atmospheres and that habitability requires the presence of liquid water on the planet's surface. The inner edge of the HZ is determined in our model by loss of water via photolysis and hydrogen escape. The outer edge of the HZ is determined by the formation of CO2 clouds, which cool a planet's surface by increasing its albedo and by lowering the convective lapse rate. Conservative estimates for these distances in our own Solar System are 0.95 and 1.37 AU, respectively; the actual width of the present HZ could be much greater. Between these two limits, climate stability is ensured by a feedback mechanism in which atmospheric CO2 concentrations vary inversely with planetary surface temperature. The width of the HZ is slightly greater for planets that are larger than Earth and for planets which have higher N2 partial pressures. The HZ evolves outward in time because the Sun increases in luminosity as it ages. A conservative estimate for the width of the 4.6-Gyr continuously habitable zone (CHZ) is 0.95 to 1.15 AU. Stars later than F0 have main sequence lifetimes exceeding 2 Gyr and, so, are also potential candidates for harboring habitable planets. The HZ around an F star is larger and occurs farther out than for our Sun; the HZ around K and M stars is smaller and occurs farther in. Nevertheless, the widths of all of these HZs are approximately the same if distance is expressed on a logarithmic scale. A log distance scale is probably the appropriate scale for this problem because the planets in our own Solar System are spaced logarithmically and because the distance at which another star would be expected to form planets should be related to the star's mass. The width of the CHZ around other stars depends on the time that a planet is required to remain habitable and on whether a planet that is initially frozen can be thawed by modest increases in stellar luminosity. For a specified period of habitability, CHZs around K and M stars are wider (in log distance) than for our Sun because these stars evolve more slowly. Planets orbiting late K stars and M stars may not be habitable, however, b ecause they can become trapped in synchronous rotation as a consequence of tidal damping. F stars have narrower (log distance) CHZ's than our Sun because they evolve more rapidly. Our results suggest that mid-to-early K stars should be considered along with G stars as optimal candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Atmosphere↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Long-term productivity in the cryptoendolithic microbial community of the Ross Desert, Antarctica.

Annual gross productivity of the lichen-dominated cryptoendolithic community was calculated from a computer analysis of photosynthetic response based on laboratory measurements of CO2 exchange and three years (1985-1988) of field nanoclimate data. Photosynthetic optimum increased from -3 to 2 degrees C between irradiance levels of 100 and 1500 micromoles photons m-2 s-1, while the upper compensation point rose from 1 to 17 degrees C. The mean yearly total time available for metabolic activity (temperature above -10 degrees C and moisture present) was 771.3 h for horizontal rock, 421.5 h for northeast-oriented sloped rock, and 1042.2 h for a small depression in horizontal rock (the characteristic site of occasional lichen apothecia). The calculated mean gross productivity value for a horizontal rock was 1215 mg C m-2 y-1, and net photosynthetic gain was 606 mg C m-2 y-1. Net ecosystem productivity (annual accretion of cellular biomass) estimated from long-term events amounted to only about 3 mg C m-2 y-1. The difference between these two values may represent the long-term metabolic costs of the frequent dehydration-rehydration and freezing-thawing cycles or of overwintering, and may account for the leaching of organic substances to the rock. The yearly gross productivity of the cryptoendolithic microbial community of the entire Ross Desert area was estimated at approximately 120,000-180,000 kg C. Of this, 600-900 kg C is in microbial biomass, and much of the rest is soluble compounds that leach into the rocks and possibly percolate to the valleys, providing a source of organic matter for lakes, rivers, and soils.

Antarctic Regions↗
PubMed1990

Mobilifilum chasei: morphology and ecology of a spirochete from an intertidal stratified microbial mat community.

Spirochetes were found in the lower anoxiphototrophic layer of a stratified microbial mat (North Pond, Laguna Figueroa, Baja California, Mexico). Ultra-structural analysis of thin sections of field samples revealed spirochetes approximately 0.25 micrometer in diameter with 10 or more periplasmic flagella, leading to the interpretation that these spirochetes bear 10 flagellar insertions on each end. Morphometric study showed these free-living spirochetes greatly resemble certain symbiotic ones, i.e., Borrelia and certain termite spirochetes, the transverse sections of which are presented here. The ultrastructure of this spirochete also resembles Hollandina and Diplocalyx (spirochetes symbiotic in arthropods) more than it does Spirochaeta, the well known genus of mud-dwelling spirochetes. The new spirochete was detected in mat material collected both in 1985 and in 1987. Unique morphology (i.e., conspicuous outer coat of inner membrane, large number of periplasmic flagella) and ecology prompt us to name a new free-living spirochete.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Characterization of 15 selected coccal bacteria isolated from Antarctic rock and soil samples from the McMurdo-Dry Valleys (South-Victoria Land).

Approximately 1500 cultures of microorganisms were isolated from rocks and soils of the Ross Desert (McMurdo-Dry Valleys). From these, 15 coccoid strains were chosen for more detailed investigation. They were characterized by morphological, physiological and chemotaxonomical properties. All isolates were Gram-positive, catalase-positive and nonmotile. Six strains showed red pigmentation and could be identified as members of the genera Micrococcus (M. roseus, M. agilis) or Deinococcus. In spite of their coccoid morphology, the remaining nine strains had to be associated with coryneform bacteria (Arthrobacter, Brevibacterium), because of their cell wall composition and G+C ratios. Most of the strains were psychrotrophic, but one strain was even obligately psychrophilic, with a temperature maximum below 20 degrees C. Red cocci had in vitro pH optima above 9.0 although they generally originated from acid samples. Most isolates showed a preference for sugar alcohols and organic acids, compounds which are commonly known to be released by lichens, molds and algae, the other components of the cryptoendolithic ecosystem. These properties indicate that our strains are autochthonous members of the natural Antarctic microbial population.

Antarctic Regions↗
PubMed1987

The cryptoendolithic microbial environment in the Ross Desert of Antarctica: satellite-transmitted continuous nanoclimate data, 1984 to 1986.

A satellite mediated station for monitoring nanoclimate (climate in the millimeter range) data, suitable for use in polar regions is described. The station, located in the Ross desert of Antarctica, has been in operation for more than 3 years, measuring rock temperatures, air temperature, light, snow, wind, and moisture. The data indicate that biological activity in the cryptoendolithic microbial ecosystem is limited to the period from mid November to mid February. The total number of hours of biological activity, based on assumptions of the minimum light, temperature and moisture requirements of the community, is less than 1000 h/year. The time above 0 degrees C, representing more nearly optimal conditions, is between 50 and 550 h/year, depending on the orientation of the surface.

Antarctic Regions↗
PubMed1993

Comparison of membrane ATPases from extreme halophiles isolated from ancient salt deposits.

Halophilic microorganisms were isolated from Triassic and Permian salt deposits. Two were rods and grew as red colonies; another was a coccus and produced pink colonies. The rods lysed in solutions that lacked added sodium chloride. Growth of all isolates was inhibited by aphidicolin and their bulk proteins were acidic as judged from isoelectric focusing. Therefore, these organisms were tentatively identified as extreme halophiles. Whole cell proteins patterns of the isolates following gel electrophoresis were distinct and differed from those of representative type strains of halophilic bacteria. The membrane ATPases from the rods were similar to the enzyme from Halobacterium saccharovorum with respect to subunit composition, enzymatic properties and immunological cross-reaction, but differed slightly in amino acid composition. If the age of the microbial isolated is similar to that of the salt deposits, they can be considered repositories of molecular information of great evolutionary interest.

Adenosine Triphosphatases↗
PubMed1992

Bolide impacts and the oxidation state of carbon in the Earth's early atmosphere.

A one-dimensional photochemical model was used to examine the effect of bolide impacts on the oxidation state of Earth's primitive atmosphere. The impact rate should have been high prior to 3.8 Ga before present, based on evidence derived from the Moon. Impacts of comets or carbonaceous asteroids should have enhanced the atmospheric CO/CO2 ratio by bringing in CO ice and/or organic carbon that can be oxidized to CO in the impact plume. Ordinary chondritic impactors would contain elemental iron that could have reacted with ambient CO2 to give CO. Nitric oxide (NO) should also have been produced by reaction between ambient CO2 and N2 in the hot impact plumes. High NO concentrations increase the atmospheric CO/CO2 ratio by increasing the rainout rate of oxidized gases. According to the model, atmospheric CO/CO2 ratios of unity or greater are possible during the first several hundred million years of Earth's history, provided that dissolved CO was not rapidly oxidized to bicarbonate in the ocean. Specifically, high atmospheric CO/CO2 ratios are possible if either: (1) the climate was cool (like today's climate), so that hydration of dissolved CO to formate was slow, or (2) the formate formed from CO was efficiently converted into volatile, reduced carbon compounds, such as methane. A high atmospheric CO/CO2 ratio may have helped to facilitate prebiotic synthesis by enhancing the production rates of hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde. Formaldehyde may have been produced even more efficiently by photochemical reduction of bicarbonate and formate in Fe(++)-rich surface waters.

Atmosphere↗
PubMed1989

Sulfur, ultraviolet radiation, and the early evolution of life.

The present biosphere is shielded from harmful solar near ultraviolet (UV) radiation by atmospheric ozone. We suggest here that elemental sulfur vapor could have played a similar role in an anoxic, ozone-free, primitive atmosphere. Sulfur vapor would have been produced photochemically from volcanogenic SO2 and H2S. It is composed of ring molecules, primarily S8, that absorb strongly throughout the near UV, yet are expected to be relatively stable against photolysis and chemical attack. It is also insoluble in water and would thus have been immune to rainout or surface deposition over the oceans. The concentration of S8 in the primitive atmosphere would have been limited by its saturation vapor pressure, which is a strong function of temperature. Hence, it would have depended on the magnitude of the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Surface temperatures of 45 degrees C or higher, corresponding to carbon dioxide partial pressures exceeding 2 bars, are required to sustain an effective UV screen. Two additional requirements are that the ocean was saturated with sulfite and bisulfite, and that linear S8 chains must tend to reform rings faster than they are destroyed by photolysis. A warm, sulfur-rich, primitive atmosphere is consistent with inferences drawn from molecular phylogeny, which suggest that some of the earliest organisms were thermophilic bacteria that metabolized elemental sulfur.

Atmosphere↗
PubMed1993

Pathways of proton transfer in the light-driven pump bacteriorhodopsin.

The mechanism of proton transport in the light-driven pump bacteriorhodopsin is beginning to be understood. Light causes the all-trans to 13-cis isomerization of the retinal chromophore. This sets off a sequential and directed series of transient decreases in the pKa's of a) the retinal Schiff base, b) an extracellular proton release complex which includes asp-85, and c) a cytoplasmic proton uptake complex which includes asp-96. The timing of these pKa changes during the photoreaction cycle causes sequential proton transfers which result in the net movement of a proton across the protein, from the cytoplasmic to the extracellular surface.

Bacterial Proteins↗
PubMed1990

PCR amplification of 16S rDNA from lyophilized cell cultures facilitates studies in molecular systematics.

The sequence of the major portion of a Bacillus cycloheptanicus strain SCH(T) 16S rRNA gene is reported. This sequence suggests that B. cycloheptanicus is genetically quite distinct from traditional Bacillus strains (e.g., B. subtilis) and may be properly regarded as belonging to a different genus. The sequence was determined from DNA that was produced by direct amplification of ribosomal DNA from a lyophilized cell pellet with straightforward polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedures. By obviating the need to revive cell cultures from the lyophile pellet, this approach facilitates rapid 16S rDNA sequencing and thereby advances studies in molecular systematics.

Bacillus↗
PubMed1990

Effects of oxidants and reductants on the efficiency of excitation transfer in green photosynthetic bacteria.

The efficiency of energy transfer in chlorosome antennas in the green sulfur bacteria Chlorobium vibrioforme and Chlorobium limicola was found to be highly sensitive to the redox potential of the suspension. Energy transfer efficiencies were measured by comparing the absorption spectrum of the bacteriochlorophyll c or d pigments in the chlorosome to the excitation spectrum for fluorescence arising from the chlorosome baseplate and membrane-bound antenna complexes. The efficiency of energy transfer approaches 100% at low redox potentials induced by addition of sodium dithionite or other strong reductants, and is lowered to 10-20% under aerobic conditions or after addition of a variety of membrane-permeable oxidizing agents. The redox effect on energy transfer is observed in whole cells, isolated membranes and purified chlorosomes, indicating that the modulation of energy transfer efficiency arises within the antenna complexes and is not directly mediated by the redox state of the reaction center. It is proposed that chlorosomes contain a component that acts as a highly quenching center in its oxidized state, but is an inefficient quencher when reduced by endogenous or exogenous reductants. This effect may be a control mechanism that prevents cellular damage resulting from reaction of oxygen with reduced low-potential electron acceptors found in the green sulfur bacteria. The redox modulation effect is not observed in the green gliding bacterium Chloroflexus aurantiacus, which contains chlorosomes but does not contain low-potential electron acceptors.

Bacteria↗
PubMed1991

Chronology of early Archaean granite-greenstone evolution in the Barberton Mountain Land, South Africa, based on precise dating by single zircon evaporation.

We report precise 207Pb/206Pb single zircon evaporation ages for low-grade felsic metavolcanic rocks within the Onverwacht and Fig Tree Groups of the Barberton Greenstone Belt (BGB), South Africa, and from granitoid plutons bordering the belt. Dacitic tuffs of the Hooggenoeg Formation in the upper part of the Onverwacht Group yield ages between 3445 +/- 3 and 3416 +/- 5 Ma and contain older crustal components represented by a 3504 +/- 4 Ma old zircon xenocryst. Fig Tree dacitic tuffs and agglomerates have euhedral zircons between 3259 +/- 5 and 3225 +/- 3 Ma in age which we interpret to reflect the time of crystallization. A surprisingly complex xenocryst population in one sample documents ages from 3323 +/- 4 to 3522 +/- 4 Ma. We suspect that these xenocrysts were inherited, during the passage of the felsic melts to the surface, from various sources such as greenstones and granitoid rocks now exposed in the form of tonalite-trondhjemite plutons along the southern and western margins of the BGB, and units predating any of the exposed greenstone or intrusive rocks. Several of the granitoids along the southern margin of the belt have zircon populations with ages between 3490 and 3440 Ma. coeval with or slightly older than Onverwacht felsic volcanism, while the Kaap Valley pluton along the northwestern margin of the belt is coeval with Fig Tree dacitic volcanism. These results emphasize the comagmatic relationships between greenstone felsic volcanic units and the surrounding plutonic suites. Some of the volcanic plutonic units contain zircon xenocrysts older than any exposed rocks. These indicate the existence of still older units, possibly stratigraphically lower and older portions of the greenstone sequence itself, older granitoid intrusive rocks, or bodies of older, unrelated crustal material. Our data show that the Onverwacht and Fig Tree felsic units have distinctly different ages and therefore do not represent a single, tectonically repeated unit as proposed by others. Unlike the late Archaean Abitibi greenstone belt in Canada, which formed over about 30 Ma. exposed rocks in the BGB formed over a period of at least 220 Ma. The complex zircon populations encountered in this study imply that conventional multigrain zircon dating may not accurately identify the time of felsic volcanic activity in ancient greenstones. A surprising similarity in rock types, tectonic evolution, and ages of the BGB in the Kaapvaal craton of southern Africa and greenstones in the Pilbara Block of Western Australia suggests that these two terrains may have been part of a larger crustal unit in early Archaean times.

Crystallization↗
PubMed1992

What determines the volume of the oceans?

The volume of Earth's oceans may be determined by a dynamic mechanism involving exchange of water between the crust and the mantle. Fast-spreading mid-ocean ridges are currently submerged to a depth at which the pressure is close to the critical pressure for seawater. This ensures optimal convective heat transport and, hence, maximal penetration of hydrothermal circulation along the ridge axes. The oceanic crust is hydrated to a depth of a kilometer or more and can therefore carry a substantial flux of water to the upper mantle when it is subducted. The current ingassing rate of water by this process is probably at least sufficient to balance the outgassing rate. If the oceans were shallower, as they may have been in the distant past, convective heat transport would be reduced and the depth of hydrothermal penetration and crustal hydration would decrease. Outgassing would exceed ingassing and ocean volume would increase. The system is self-stabilizing as long as the depth of the oceans does not exceed its present value. This mechanism could explain why continental freeboard has remained approximately constant since the Archean despite probable increases in continental area.

Climate↗
PubMed1993

Time-resolved tryptophan fluorescence in photosynthetic reaction centers from Rhodobacter sphaeroides.

Tryptophan fluorescence of reaction centers isolated from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, both stationary and time-resolved, was studied. Fluorescence kinetics were found to fit best a sum of four discrete exponential components. Half of the initial amplitude was due to a component with a lifetime of congruent to 60 ps, belonging to Trp residues, capable of efficient transfer of excitation energy to bacteriochlorophyll molecules of the reaction center. The three other components seem to be emitted by Trp ground-state conformers, unable to participate in such a transfer. Under the influence of intense actinic light, photooxidizing the reaction centers, the yield of stationary fluorescence diminished by congruent to 1.5 times, while the number of the kinetic components and their life times remained practically unchanged. Possible implications of the observed effects for the primary photosynthesis events are considered.

Amino Acid Sequence↗