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On the Early Evolution of Catabolic Pathways: A Comparative Genomics Approach. I. The Cases of Glucose, Ribose, and the Nucleobases Catabolic Routes

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Abstract

Compared with the large corpus of published work devoted to the study of the origin and early development of anabolism, little attention has been given to the discussion of the early evolution of catabolism in spite of its significance. In the present study, we have used comparative genomics to explore the evolution and phylogenetic distribution of the enzymes that catalyze the extant catabolic pathways of the monosaccharides glucose and ribose, as well as those of the nucleobases adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, and thymine. Based on the oxygen dependence of the enzymes, their conservation, and evolution, we speculate on the relative antiquity of the pathways. Our results allow us to suggest which catabolic pathways and enzymes may have already been present in the last common ancestor. We conclude that the enzymatic degradations of ribose, as well as those of purines adenine and guanine, are among the most ancient catabolic pathways which can be traced by protein-based methodologies.

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Acknowledgements

Mario Rivas Medrano is a doctoral student from the Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and received fellowship 255708 from CONACYT. Financial support to AB and AL from the PAPIIT-UNAM (IN223916) is gratefully acknowledged. We are indebted to Ricardo Hernandez-Morales for his technical support in the preparation of the manuscript. We appreciate the advice of Claudia Alvarez-Carreño while analyzing the crystallographic structures of proteins, and the programing skills of César Antonio Martínez Gutiérrez while developing the scripts and routines used in the present work.

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  1. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apdo. Postal 70-407, Cd. Universitaria, 04510, Mexico City, Mexico

    Mario Rivas, Arturo Becerra & Antonio Lazcano

  2. Miembro de El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico

    Antonio Lazcano

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Correspondence to Antonio Lazcano.

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Rivas, M., Becerra, A. & Lazcano, A. On the Early Evolution of Catabolic Pathways: A Comparative Genomics Approach. I. The Cases of Glucose, Ribose, and the Nucleobases Catabolic Routes. J Mol Evol 86, 27–46 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-017-9822-8

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