Evolutionary oxidation of proteins in Earth’s history
Abstract
Evidence for Earth’s oxygenation during the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) and Neoproterozoic Oxidation Event (NOE) comes primarily from the geological record. We report rising oxidation state of carbon (Zc) in proteins over billion-year timescales, a consistent trend recovered from diverse genomic datasets. Combining statistical and thermodynamic modeling, we link this trend to environmental drivers including Earth’s progressive oxygenation and secular cooling. The oxidation trend appears in the amino acid composition of modern genomes from methanogens and sulfur-cycling organisms, phylostratigraphic gene age groups in eukaryotes, and reconstructed ancestral sequences for Rubisco, nitrogenase, thioredoxin, and 3-isopropylmalate dehydrogenase (IPMDH). Major Zc steps broadly overlap the GOE but do not exactly coincide with it; uncertainties in phylogenetic age and limited spatial associations complicate direct comparison with geochemical proxies. Gene age groups in unicellular, but not multicellular, eukaryotes show a second rise of protein Zc around the NOE. These widespread genomic signatures of protein oxidation are consistent with a thermodynamic hypothesis in which energy minimization directs protein sequence evolution across metabolic functions.
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BibTeX
@article{dick2026evolutionary,
title = {{Evolutionary oxidation of proteins in Earth’s history}},
author = {Jeffrey M. Dick and Jingqiang Tan and Hongchen Jiang and Douglas E. LaRowe},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78774-5},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78774-5},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Evolutionary oxidation of proteins in Earth’s history
AU - Jeffrey M. Dick
AU - Jingqiang Tan
AU - Hongchen Jiang
AU - Douglas E. LaRowe
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/28
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78774-5
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78774-5
AB - Evidence for Earth’s oxygenation during the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) and Neoproterozoic Oxidation Event (NOE) comes primarily from the geological record. We report rising oxidation state of carbon (Zc) in proteins over billion-year timescales, a consistent trend recovered from diverse genomic datasets. Combining statistical and thermodynamic modeling, we link this trend to environmental drivers including Earth’s progressive oxygenation and secular cooling. The oxidation trend appears in the amino acid composition of modern genomes from methanogens and sulfur-cycling organisms, phylostratigraphic gene age groups in eukaryotes, and reconstructed ancestral sequences for Rubisco, nitrogenase, thioredoxin, and 3-isopropylmalate dehydrogenase (IPMDH). Major Zc steps broadly overlap the GOE but do not exactly coincide with it; uncertainties in phylogenetic age and limited spatial associations complicate direct comparison with geochemical proxies. Gene age groups in unicellular, but not multicellular, eukaryotes show a second rise of protein Zc around the NOE. These widespread genomic signatures of protein oxidation are consistent with a thermodynamic hypothesis in which energy minimization directs protein sequence evolution across metabolic functions.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -