416: Oxygen Or Other Oxidizes Iron?

This episode: Earth's iron deposits could have been created by
anaerobic light-harvesting microbes instead of those that make
oxygen!


Download Episode (9.3 MB, 13.5 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Streptomyces avidinii

News item

Takeaways
In the ancient earth, the sun was dimmer, the world was colder,
and oxygen was rare because photosynthesis had not yet evolved.
Without oxygen to oxidize it, iron remained in its soluble, more
accessible form, and many organisms took advantage of it for
anaerobic metabolism.

But was it photosynthesis and the oxygen it created that
transformed most of the planet's iron into its insoluble form,
creating large iron deposits in the ground? This study explores
the possibility that it was another form of light-harvesting
metabolism, called photoferrotrophy, that uses light and the
transformation of iron to generate energy. This hypothesis is
found to be consistent with the evidence we have about what the
early earth was like.

Journal Paper:
Thompson KJ, Kenward PA, Bauer KW, Warchola T, Gauger T, Martinez
R, Simister RL, Michiels CC, Llirós M, Reinhard CT, Kappler A,
Konhauser KO, Crowe SA. 2019. Photoferrotrophy, deposition of
banded iron formations, and methane production in Archean oceans.
Sci Adv 5:eaav2869.


Other interesting stories:



Gut microbes help whales digest tricky fats in their diet

Bacteria deliver antibiotic to competitors using capsules
made of its own membrane (paper)




 


Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot
com. Thanks for listening!


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