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Published February 1, 2024 | Submitted
Discussion Paper Open

The proteome is a terminal electron acceptor

Abstract

Microbial metabolism is impressively flexible, enabling growth even when available nutrients differ greatly from biomass in redox state. E. coli, for example, rearranges its physiology to grow on reduced and oxidized carbon sources through several forms of fermentation and respiration. To understand the limits on and evolutionary consequences of metabolic flexibility, we developed a mathematical model coupling redox chemistry with principles of cellular resource allocation. Our integrated model clarifies key phenomena, including demonstrating that autotrophs grow slower than heterotrophs because of constraints imposed by intracellular production of reduced carbon. Our model further indicates that growth is improved by adapting the redox state of biomass to nutrients, revealing an unexpected mode of evolution where proteins accumulate mutations benefiting organismal redox balance.

Copyright and License

 

Data Availability

Code Availability

All code and data are available either as supplementary tables or at https://github.com/flamholz/redox-proteome.

https://github.com/flamholz/redox-proteome

 

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to E. Afik, L. Aristilde, J. Ciemniecki, A. Duarte, J. Goldford, S. Hirokawa, R. Murali, T. Roeschinger, and G. Salmon for useful discussions and to Y.M. Bar-On, G. Chure, D. LaRowe, and R. Milo for detailed comments on the manuscript.

Funding

NSF PHY-1748958 to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (AIF, AG)

Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund postdoctoral fellowship 61-1772 (AIF).

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation grant GBMF4513 (AG)

Govt of India’s Ramalingaswami Fellowship (AG).

Caltech Center for Evolutionary Sciences (WWF)

National Institutes of Health grant 1R01AI127850-01A1 (DKN)

The Rosen Center at Caltech (RP)

National Institutes of Health MIRA grant 1R35 GM118043 (RP)

Contributions

Conceptualization: AIF

Methodology: AIF, AG

Investigation: AIF, AG, WWF, DKN, RP

Visualization: AIF, AG

Funding acquisition: AIF, AG, WWF, DKN, RP

Supervision: WWF, DKN, RP

Writing – original draft: AIF

Writing – review & editing: AIF, AG, WWF, DKN, RP

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Additional details

Created:
May 3, 2024
Modified:
May 3, 2024