Quest for Food (eBook)

Harald Brüssow is a Senior Research Scientist in Nestle Research Centre's Nutrition and Health Department in Lausanne, Switzerland. He received his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry at Martinsried, Germany and served on the editorial board of two journals published by the American Society for Microbiology.

Preface 7
Acknowledgments 10
Contents 12
A Nutritional Conditio Humana 18
A Few Glimpses on Biological Anthropology 18
An Early Venus and Breastfeeding: The Quest for Food and Sex as Driving Forces in Biology 18
Lady Europe's Liaison with a Bull: The Spread of Agriculture and Dairy Cultures 27
Basic Concepts on Eating 35
Raw Food for Thought 35
Thermodynamics Made Simple 37
Different Ways of Life 38
The Central Metabolic Pathway 40
A Few Words About ATP 42
Some Aspects of Nutritional Biochemistry 44
The Central Carbon Pathway 44
Why is Glucose the Central Fuel Molecule? 44
Glycolysis 45
Variations on a Theme 47
Variant Glycolytic Intermediates 53
Lactate and Ethanol Fermentation: A Bit of Biotechnology 55
A Short Running Exercise 58
Liaison Dangereuse: Lactate, Cancer, and the Warburg Effect 59
Glucokinase at the Crossroad of Cellular Life and Death 61
Metabolic Networks 62
De Revolutionibus Orbium Metabolicorum 70
Revolutionary Histories 70
Mitochondria as Bacterial Endosymbionts 71
Pyruvate Dehydrogenase: The Linker Between Pathways 73
On the Value of Mutants 76
Why is the Citric Acid Cycle so Complicated? 77
The Horseshoe TCA Pathway 80
History Might Matter: An Argument on Chance and Necessity 83
Metabolic Crossroads in Ancient Landscapes: NAD or NADP---That's the Question 87
The Logic and Adaptive Value of Metabolic Cycles 90
Bioenergetics 93
Oxygen 93
The Origin of the Electrons and Biochemical Cycles: Anatomy of Complex II 93
Fumarate Reductase: The Dangers with Oxygen 97
The Handling of Molecular Oxygen 99
Social Feeding in Worms Explained by Oxygen Avoidance 104
Electrons 107
The Chemiosmotic Hypothesis 107
Anatomy of the Respiratory Chain 109
Cytochromes bc1 and b6f 114
Protons and ATP 117
Proton Pumping and O2 Reduction 117
Purposeful Wastefulness 121
Fiat Lux 124
The Smallest Motor of the World 130
The Evolution of Eating Systems 136
The Beginning of Biochemistry 136
A Soup as a Starter? The Origin of Biochemical Cycles 137
On Timescales in Biology 141
The RNA World 143
The Ribosome is a Ribozyme 146
Demise of the RNA World 148
Metabolic Control by Riboswitches 149
Let Others do the Job: Viral Relics of the RNA Worlds 151
Messengers from a Precellular DNA World? 154
The Importance of Being Lipid Enveloped 159
Early Eaters 162
What is at the Root? 162
Hydrogen and Bioenergetics 164
Methanogenesis 166
Methanotrophs 173
Sulfur Worlds 178
Metagenomics and the Strange Appetite of Bacteria 181
Nutritional Interactions 185
Hydrothermal Vents as a Cradle of Life? 189
A Photosynthetic Beginning of Cellular Life? 190
Photosynthesis 195
One Cell for all Seasons: The Nutritional Flexibility of Purple Nonsulfur Bacteria 195
Cyanobacteria and the Invention of Oxygenic Photosynthesis 202
Getting Closer to the Water-Splitting Center: Photosystem II 207
Evolutionary Patchwork: Photosystem I 212
Speculations on the Origin of Photosynthesis 215
The Impact of Oxygen on the Evolution of Metabolisms on Earth 216
The Acquisition of the Atoms of Life 219
The Easy Acquisitions: HOP 219
A Demanding Step: Photosynthetic CO2 Fixation 223
Recycling in Biochemistry: Rubisco and the Calvin Cycle 228
Alternative CO2 Pathways in Autotrophic Prokaryotes 232
A Few Numbers on the History of CO2 Concentrations 233
A Tricky Business: N2 Fixation 234
Nitrification 240
Closing of the Nitrogen Cycle by Anammox Bacteria 240
Plant Symbiosis for Nitrogen Fixation 242
Sulfur Uptake by Plants 246
Nutritional Interactions in the Ocean: The Microbial Perspective 248
Stromatolites and Biomats 248
Read my Lips: Cyanobacteria at the Ocean Surface 250
Problems with Nitrogen Fixation for Cyanobacteria 255
A World of Iron 258
Iron Age in Mythology 258
Another Problem in Cyanobacteria: Iron Limitation 259
Sowing the Sea with an Iron Plow: Where Feeding Impacts on Global Climate 260
Photosynthesis Versus Respiration in the Ocean: The Closing of the Carbon Cycle 265
The Most Abundant Cells on Earth are on a Small Diet 271
Depth Profile 274
Sediments 276
Early Steps in Predation 280
The Phage Way of Life: Bacterium Eaters 285
Phages in the Microbial Loop of the Food Chain 289
On Starvation, Sporulation, Cannibalism, and Antibiotics: Near Death Experiences 292
Increasing Complexity 297
The Birth of the Eukaryotic Cell 297
The Story of O and the Malnourished Ocean 305
Vita Minima: The Reductionist Lifestyle of Protist Parasites 307
Primary Endosymbiosis: The Origin of Chloroplasts 310
Predator Protozoa… 317
… And How Bacteria Get off the Hook 318
Algal Slaves 321
Diatoms and the Marine Food Chain, on Toxins and Armors, Art, and Purpose 324
Diatom Nutrition 334
Dinoflagellates 340
The First Animals 343
The Origins and the Sponges 343
The Ediacaran Fauna 351
Cnidarians: From Sea Pens and Different Feeding Habits… 357
…To Reef Bleaching as Expression of Their Dynamic Symbiotic Relationships 365
The Cambrian Revolution 373
Vertebrates 377
Toward Vertebrates: An Inconspicuous Beginning as Filter Feeders 377
The Middle Paleozoic Marine Revolution: A Story of Jaws and Teeth 385
Putting Four Feet on the Ground 395
Mesozoic Gigantism: The Crown of the Terrestrial Carnivores? 399
The Invention of the Egg, Brooding and Parental Care 410
Mammals: Not so Modest Beginnings? 418
Mammals: Seamless Nutrition 422
The Ecology of Eating Systems 433
Eat or be Eaten: Anatomy of the Marine Food Chain 433
Overview 433
Algae and the Story of DMS 434
Copepods and Krill 437
Planktivorous Fish 442
Piscivorous Fish 447
Piscivorous Mammals 450
Killer Whales: Effect of a Top Predator Down the Food Chain 452
The Fall of the Whales 458
Life Histories Between the Land and the Sea 459
Nutritional Ecology 466
Trophic Cascades Across Ecosystems 466
The War of the Senses: The Example of Echolocation 469
Antipredation Strategies 476
Mimicry 481
Predator--Prey Cycles: From Chaos in the Food Web to Infectious Diseases 483
Toxic Predator--Prey Arms Races 491
Herbivory 499
Terra Firma---Bacteria and Plants Conquer the Land 500
Lignin Synthesis and Degradation 504
Taking to the Air: Early Insects 512
Early Herbivorous Vertebrates 523
A Bite of Plant Material by an Omnivore Like us 526
A Bioreactor Fueled by Grass 540
Plant Defense Against Herbivory 546
The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend 555
Herbivores: Patterns of Predation 561
Eating Cultures 565
Choosing Food 565
To Eat or Not to Eat 565
Food Separating Species 578
Behavior 582
Sharing Food and Other Goods: On Cheating and Altruism 582
Communicating on Food 591
Animal Technology 597
The Invention of Agriculture: Fungal Gardens of Ants 597
Tool Use and Caches in Crows 605
On Stone Tools and Culture in Apes 608
Human's Progress? 613
The Diet of Australopithecus 613
From Hominid Stone Tools to the Control of Fire 616
Hunters and Gatherers: The Origin of Grandmother's Recipe 622
On Neanderthals and Cannibalism 627
The Hobbit: Wanderer Between the Worlds 631
Late Pleistocene Megafauna Extinction: An Early Blitzkrieg? 633
The Spread of Early Agriculture 644
Domestication 647
The Garden of Eden: Domestication of Crops 647
Taming the Beast 661
Domestication of Moulds: Aspergillus 663
Fishery 665
Contemporary Fishery Problems 665
In Cod We Trust 666
History of Fishing 667
Aquaculture 672
The Lesson of the Lake Victoria 674
On Fishery, Bushmeat, and SARS 678
We as Food and Feeders 684
Prey of Microbes 684
A Lion's Share? 684
The Haunted Hunter… 686
… And the Risks of Animal Farming 689
Problems of Food Safety: BSE 697
Going for our Blood 701
Real-life Draculas 701
Hitchhiking the Blood Sucker 705
Going for our Gut 711
The Land Where Milk and Honey Flows 711
The Thin Line Between Symbiont and Pathogen 719
Janus Faces: The Case of Vibrio cholerae 727
From Gut to Blood: The Battle for Iron 734
Viruses Going for Gut or Genome 740
Portrait of a Killer Virus 740
A Glimpse into the World of Retroelements 748
The Sense of Life 751
An Agro(-Eco)nomical Outlook: Feeding the Billions 755
Malthus: Doomsday Versus Science and Technology? 755
From the Green Revolution to Organic Farming 760
From Biodiversity to the Wood Wide Web: On Rice and Grassland Productivity 765
The Rice Blast Fungus: A Threat to World Food Security? 771
Sowing Golden Rice in the Field? 775
A Story Without End? 782
References 786
Biochemical Back-ups 847
Web References 847
Chapter 1 848
Chapter 2 848
Chapter 3 849
Chapter 4 850
Chapter 5 855
Chapter 6 856
Chapter 7 857
Chapter 8 858
Index 859