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Figure 2 | Biology Direct

Figure 2

From: Early evolution without a tree of life

Figure 2

An alakaline hydrothermal vent harbours a natural proton gradient. The flux of hydrothermal effluent maintains an alkaline interior. In the presence of appropriate proteins, this source of energy could, in principle, be tapped. The harnessing of naturally preexisting chemiosmotic gradients before the advent of genetically specified mechanisms to generate such gradients would directly explain why ATP synthases of the F-type (eubacteria) and A-type (archaebacteria) are universal and conserved [63], but the mechanisms to generate proton gradients are not. See references [30–32, 48].

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