Gray Callum, Chitnavis Samir, Buja Tamara, Duffy Christopher D P
Digital Environment Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom.
School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS Comput Biol. 2025 Mar 11;21(3):e1012845. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012845. eCollection 2025 Mar.
Oxygenic photosynthesis is responsible for nearly all biomass production on Earth, and may have been a prerequisite for establishing a complex biosphere rich in multicellular life. Life on Earth has evolved to perform photosynthesis in a wide range of light environments, but with a common basic architecture of a light-harvesting antenna system coupled to a photochemical reaction centre. Using a generalized thermodynamic model of light-harvesting, coupled with an evolutionary algorithm, we predict the type of light-harvesting structures that might evolve in light of different intensities and spectral profiles. We reproduce qualitatively the pigment composition, linear absorption profile and structural topology of the antenna systems of multiple types of oxygenic photoautotrophs, suggesting that the same physical principles underlie the development of distinct antenna structures in various light environments. Finally we apply our model to representative light environments that would exist on Earth-like exoplanets, predicting that both oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis could evolve around low mass stars, though the latter would seem to work better around the coolest M-dwarfs. We see this as an interesting first step toward a general evolutionary model of basic biological processes and proof that it is meaningful to hypothesize on the nature of biology beyond Earth.
有氧光合作用几乎负责地球上所有的生物量生产，并且可能是建立一个富含多细胞生命的复杂生物圈的先决条件。地球上的生命已经进化到能在广泛的光照环境中进行光合作用，但都具有一个共同的基本结构，即与光化学反应中心相连的光捕获天线系统。利用光捕获的广义热力学模型，并结合进化算法，我们预测了根据不同强度和光谱分布可能进化出的光捕获结构类型。我们定性地再现了多种类型的有氧光合自养生物天线系统的色素组成、线性吸收谱和结构拓扑，这表明相同的物理原理是各种光照环境中不同天线结构发展的基础。最后，我们将模型应用于类地系外行星上可能存在的代表性光照环境，预测有氧光合作用和无氧光合作用都可能在低质量恒星周围进化，不过后者在最寒冷的M型矮星周围似乎效果更好。我们认为这是迈向基本生物过程通用进化模型的有趣的第一步，也是证明对地球以外生物学本质进行假设是有意义的证据。
