Figure 11.
Cutting loose. Escape from the vent was only possible when genetically encoded lipid synthesis and cell wall synthesis had been achieved, and when autogenous formyl pterin synthesis as well as ab initio ion-pumping mechanisms had been developed for bioenergetic reasons relating to energy conservation efficiency (see text), but in independent lineages of energetically sustainable and genetically replicating ensembles within the network of FeS compartments (see also Russell & Hall 1997; Martin & Russell 2003; Koonin & Martin 2005). The ancestral state of eubacterial physiology would be acetogenesis and that of archaebacterial physiology would be methanogenesis, followed by anaerobic microbial communities (Schink 1997) utilizing H2, acetate, methane and similar small organic compounds.