A new bioinformatic tool charts the ancient evolution of fundamental energy-conserving enzymes
A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution details the development of a novel bioinformatic tool designed to annotate HORBEC complexes—protein assemblies critical for redox balance and energy conservation—in bacterial and archaeal genomes. Using this tool, researchers reconstructed the evolutionary history of these fundamental enzymes, revealing the diversity and evolutionary trajectory of oxidoreductases across the tree of life. This work provides a comprehensive genomic resource for understanding the molecular machinery that underpins cellular energy metabolism in prokaryotes.
Why it might matter to you: For professionals in genetics and functional genomics, this research offers a powerful new computational framework for annotating complex metabolic pathways in genomic data. The evolutionary insights into these core enzymes can inform comparative genomics studies and enhance the interpretation of mutational profiles in microbial genomes. This tool could accelerate discoveries in microbial ecology, synthetic biology, and our understanding of how fundamental biochemical processes have diversified through evolution.
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