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Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution

The geosphere of primitive Earth was the source of life’s essential building blocks, and the geochemical interactions among chemical elements can inform the origins of biological roles of each element. Minerals provide a record of the fundamental properties that each chemical element contributes to...

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Autores principales: Moore, Eli K., Martinez, Daniella L., Srivastava, Naman, Morrison, Shaunna M., Spielman, Stephanie J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9323150/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35888041
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life12070951
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author Moore, Eli K.
Martinez, Daniella L.
Srivastava, Naman
Morrison, Shaunna M.
Spielman, Stephanie J.
author_facet Moore, Eli K.
Martinez, Daniella L.
Srivastava, Naman
Morrison, Shaunna M.
Spielman, Stephanie J.
author_sort Moore, Eli K.
collection PubMed
description The geosphere of primitive Earth was the source of life’s essential building blocks, and the geochemical interactions among chemical elements can inform the origins of biological roles of each element. Minerals provide a record of the fundamental properties that each chemical element contributes to crustal composition, evolution, and subsequent biological utilization. In this study, we investigate correlations between the mineral species and bulk crustal composition of each chemical element. There are statistically significant correlations between the number of elements that each element forms minerals with (#-mineral-elements) and the log of the number of mineral species that each element occurs in, and between #-mineral-elements and the log of the number of mineral localities of that element. There is a lesser correlation between the log of the crustal percentage of each element and #-mineral-elements. In the crustal percentage vs. #-mineral-elements plot, positive outliers have either important biological roles (S, Cu) or toxic biological impacts (Pb, As), while negative outliers have no biological importance (Sc, Ga, Br, Yb). In particular, S is an important bridge element between organic (e.g., amino acids) and inorganic (metal cofactors) biological components. While C and N rarely form minerals together, the two elements commonly form minerals with H, which coincides with the role of H as an electron donor/carrier in biological nitrogen and carbon fixation. Both abundant crustal percentage vs. #-mineral-elements insiders (elements that follow the correlation) and less abundant outsiders (positive outliers from the correlation) have important biological functions as essential structural elements and catalytic cofactors.
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spelling pubmed-93231502022-07-27 Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution Moore, Eli K. Martinez, Daniella L. Srivastava, Naman Morrison, Shaunna M. Spielman, Stephanie J. Life (Basel) Article The geosphere of primitive Earth was the source of life’s essential building blocks, and the geochemical interactions among chemical elements can inform the origins of biological roles of each element. Minerals provide a record of the fundamental properties that each chemical element contributes to crustal composition, evolution, and subsequent biological utilization. In this study, we investigate correlations between the mineral species and bulk crustal composition of each chemical element. There are statistically significant correlations between the number of elements that each element forms minerals with (#-mineral-elements) and the log of the number of mineral species that each element occurs in, and between #-mineral-elements and the log of the number of mineral localities of that element. There is a lesser correlation between the log of the crustal percentage of each element and #-mineral-elements. In the crustal percentage vs. #-mineral-elements plot, positive outliers have either important biological roles (S, Cu) or toxic biological impacts (Pb, As), while negative outliers have no biological importance (Sc, Ga, Br, Yb). In particular, S is an important bridge element between organic (e.g., amino acids) and inorganic (metal cofactors) biological components. While C and N rarely form minerals together, the two elements commonly form minerals with H, which coincides with the role of H as an electron donor/carrier in biological nitrogen and carbon fixation. Both abundant crustal percentage vs. #-mineral-elements insiders (elements that follow the correlation) and less abundant outsiders (positive outliers from the correlation) have important biological functions as essential structural elements and catalytic cofactors. MDPI 2022-06-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9323150/ /pubmed/35888041 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life12070951 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Moore, Eli K.
Martinez, Daniella L.
Srivastava, Naman
Morrison, Shaunna M.
Spielman, Stephanie J.
Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution
title Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution
title_full Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution
title_fullStr Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution
title_full_unstemmed Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution
title_short Mineral Element Insiders and Outliers Play Crucial Roles in Biological Evolution
title_sort mineral element insiders and outliers play crucial roles in biological evolution
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9323150/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35888041
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life12070951
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