A network of net-workers: report of the Euresco conference on ‘Bacterial Neural Networks’ held at San Feliu (Spain) from 8 to 14 May 2004

A natural products chemist looks at the bystander effect!

The bystander effect is a process whereby the medium in which cells are irradiated at very low levels is presumed to contain a "low molecular weight" entity that will induce cell death and/or genetic changes in fresh mammalian cells when they are incubated in the medium. Following discussions at a recent meeting in McMaster University, suggestions are made in this paper as to the possibility for the "entity" to be nitric oxide and recommendations are given as to methods that will permit a systematic (bio)chemical search to be performed in order to identify the "activator" and prove/disprove the hypothesis.

A redox switch hypothesis for the origin of two light reactions in photosynthesis

Photosynthesis provides energy in the Earth's biosphere and oxygen in its atmosphere. For oxygen to be produced, two different light reactions must operate simultaneously and in series. Known anaerobic, photosynthetic bacteria contain one or other of these photosystems, but never both. Here, I propose that the two photosystems diverged, in structure and function, from a common ancestor, within a single, continuous, anaerobic lineage. In such cells, living examples of which are predicted, the two photosystems are isoenzymes encoded by orthologous genes under co-ordinated, redox regulatory control. A redox switch responds to defined environmental conditions and selects which set of genes is expressed. In these cells, the two photosystems are thus synthesised at different times. It is further proposed that the origin of oxygen-evolving photosynthesis was a simple mutation that disabled the redox switch, permitting simultaneous expression of the two sets of genes. The two, newly co-existing photosystems became connected by shared electron carriers, allowing generation of electrochemical potential high enough to oxidise water; an inexhaustible supply of reductant; and the selective advantages and pressures of an aerobic world.