{"id":470324,"date":"2026-05-05T23:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/470324\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:53:12","slug":"earliest-organisms-on-earth-built-their-biochemistry-around-molybdenum-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/470324\/","title":{"rendered":"Earliest Organisms on Earth Built Their Biochemistry around Molybdenum, Study Suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research reveals that 3.4 billion years ago (Archean Eon), ancient microbes relied on molybdenum \u2014 a metal that was vanishingly rare at the time \u2014 and even experimented with tungsten. The findings may rewrite how astrobiologists search for life on other planets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Early<\/p>\n

Early Earth. Image credit: Peter Sawyer \/ Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

Geochemical evidence suggests that molybdenum\u2019s availability in early Earth\u2019s anoxic oceans was extremely limited, yet modern life depends on it almost universally.<\/p>\n

Scientists previously theorized that life may have used tungsten first and then evolved to use molybdenum once it became more available.<\/p>\n

University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s Professor Bet\u00fcl Ka\u00e7ar and colleagues aimed to test that assumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transition metal molybdenum displays an enigmatic evolutionary history in biology in relation to the environment,\u201d the reseatchers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMolybdenum participates in key biogeochemical transformations of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, and previous studies have proposed that many of these metabolic pathways have ancient histories.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the study, the authors screened genomic databases to identify which living species carry the genes responsible for molybdenum transport, storage, and enzyme-building.<\/p>\n

Using a technique called phylogenetic reconciliation, they reconstructed the evolutionary history of molybdenum- and tungsten-utilizing proteins across the modern tree of life.<\/p>\n

They also tracked how molybdenum moves through and is used inside living cells, studying its intracellular trafficking from uptake to catalysis.<\/p>\n

In parallel, they examined the history of biological tungsten usage for transport and catalysis.<\/p>\n

They gathered available data on the prevalence of molybdenum through time and found that, although molybdenum was scarce, ancient microbes on Earth still found a way to use it \u2014 as far back as 3.3-3.7 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is kind of counterintuitive is that, according to the geochemical record, molybdenum abundance on the early Earth seems to have been a lot lower billions of years ago, particularly before the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis,\u201d said Aya Klos, a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet for some reason, despite its limited availability, life continued to evolve using biochemical processes that rely on molybdenum.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose processes have been passed down to modern-day organisms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding which elements early life relied on can aid astrobiologists in identifying other planets that could potentially support life,\u201d Professor Ka\u00e7ar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study shows that just because an element is scarce in the environment doesn\u2019t mean life will not find a way to use it and even build an empire with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife works in surprising ways. Discoveries like this remind us that the search for life beyond Earth may require us to imagine possibilities we haven\u2019t yet considered.\u201d<\/p>\n

A paper<\/a> on the findings was published today in the journal Nature Communications.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

A.S. Klos et al. 2026. Biological use of molybdenum and tungsten stems back to 3.4 billion years ago. Nat Commun 17, 3943; doi: 10.1038\/s41467-026-72133-0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New research reveals that 3.4 billion years ago (Archean Eon), ancient microbes relied on molybdenum \u2014 a metal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[38887,181121,1669,57145,5505,3286,25340,6599,18,3287,3288,3289,19,17,168,7163,94691,206339,170,133,21480],"class_list":{"0":"post-470324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-archaea","9":"tag-archean","10":"tag-bacteria","11":"tag-catalysis","12":"tag-cell","13":"tag-dna","14":"tag-early-earth","15":"tag-earth","16":"tag-eire","17":"tag-enzyme","18":"tag-gene","19":"tag-genome","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-metabolism","23":"tag-metal","24":"tag-microbe","25":"tag-molybdenum","26":"tag-protein","27":"tag-science","28":"tag-tungsten"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116524666507160494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}