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The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen

The origin of eukaryotes was among the most important events in the history of life, spawning a new evolutionary lineage that led to all complex multicellular organisms. However, the timing of this event, crucial for understanding its environmental context, has been difficult to establish. The fossi...

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Autores principales: Craig, Jack M., Kumar, Sudhir, Hedges, S. Blair
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10505794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37727796
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbinf.2023.1233281
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author Craig, Jack M.
Kumar, Sudhir
Hedges, S. Blair
author_facet Craig, Jack M.
Kumar, Sudhir
Hedges, S. Blair
author_sort Craig, Jack M.
collection PubMed
description The origin of eukaryotes was among the most important events in the history of life, spawning a new evolutionary lineage that led to all complex multicellular organisms. However, the timing of this event, crucial for understanding its environmental context, has been difficult to establish. The fossil and biomarker records are sparse and molecular clocks have thus far not reached a consensus, with dates spanning 2.1–0.91 billion years ago (Ga) for critical nodes. Notably, molecular time estimates for the last common ancestor of eukaryotes are typically hundreds of millions of years younger than the Great Oxidation Event (GOE, 2.43–2.22 Ga), leading researchers to question the presumptive link between eukaryotes and oxygen. We obtained a new time estimate for the origin of eukaryotes using genetic data of both archaeal and bacterial origin, the latter rarely used in past studies. We also avoided potential calibration biases that may have affected earlier studies. We obtained a conservative interval of 2.2–1.5 Ga, with an even narrower core interval of 2.0–1.8 Ga, for the origin of eukaryotes, a period closely aligned with the rise in oxygen. We further reconstructed the history of biological complexity across the tree of life using three universal measures: cell types, genes, and genome size. We found that the rise in complexity was temporally consistent with and followed a pattern similar to the rise in oxygen. This suggests a causal relationship stemming from the increased energy needs of complex life fulfilled by oxygen.
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spelling pubmed-105057942023-09-19 The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen Craig, Jack M. Kumar, Sudhir Hedges, S. Blair Front Bioinform Bioinformatics The origin of eukaryotes was among the most important events in the history of life, spawning a new evolutionary lineage that led to all complex multicellular organisms. However, the timing of this event, crucial for understanding its environmental context, has been difficult to establish. The fossil and biomarker records are sparse and molecular clocks have thus far not reached a consensus, with dates spanning 2.1–0.91 billion years ago (Ga) for critical nodes. Notably, molecular time estimates for the last common ancestor of eukaryotes are typically hundreds of millions of years younger than the Great Oxidation Event (GOE, 2.43–2.22 Ga), leading researchers to question the presumptive link between eukaryotes and oxygen. We obtained a new time estimate for the origin of eukaryotes using genetic data of both archaeal and bacterial origin, the latter rarely used in past studies. We also avoided potential calibration biases that may have affected earlier studies. We obtained a conservative interval of 2.2–1.5 Ga, with an even narrower core interval of 2.0–1.8 Ga, for the origin of eukaryotes, a period closely aligned with the rise in oxygen. We further reconstructed the history of biological complexity across the tree of life using three universal measures: cell types, genes, and genome size. We found that the rise in complexity was temporally consistent with and followed a pattern similar to the rise in oxygen. This suggests a causal relationship stemming from the increased energy needs of complex life fulfilled by oxygen. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-09-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10505794/ /pubmed/37727796 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbinf.2023.1233281 Text en Copyright © 2023 Craig, Kumar and Hedges. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Bioinformatics
Craig, Jack M.
Kumar, Sudhir
Hedges, S. Blair
The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
title The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
title_full The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
title_fullStr The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
title_full_unstemmed The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
title_short The origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
title_sort origin of eukaryotes and rise in complexity were synchronous with the rise in oxygen
topic Bioinformatics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10505794/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37727796
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbinf.2023.1233281
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