Thinking about things

I'm just following trails from the Mrp antiporter derived subunit of the membrane bound hydrogenase of Pyrococcus furiosus. The original Mrp antiporter is, as you would hope, among those 60-odd gene families going right back to LUCA. Excellent stuff in here:

One step beyond a ribosome: The ancient anaerobic core

The final comment in the conclusions is this

"With regard to the most primitive forms of microbial physiology, microbiologists reached the same conclusion 45 years ago [26], namely that methanogens and acetogens probably represent the most ancient lineages [36]. We required 2000 genomes and powerful computers for our conclusions, while Decker et al. just thought about it. Evidently, just thinking about things can be a source of scientific progress".

That is so cool.

Peter