Journal Covers

Some of our recent research papers!

Amritkar, K., Cuevas-Zuviría, B., & Kaçar, B. (2025). Evolutionary Dynamics of RuBisCO: Emergence of the Small Subunit and its Impact Through Time. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 42(1), msae268. https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/42/1/msae268/7934943

Kaçar, Betül. "Reconstructing Early Microbial Life." Annual Review of Microbiology 78 (2024). https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-micro-041522-103400

Evans, G. N., Ji, S., Kaçar, B., Anbar, A. D., & Seyfried Jr, W. E. (2024). Transition metals in alkaline Lost City vent fluids are sufficient for early-life metabolisms. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 385, 61-73. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016703724004241

Harris, D. F., Rucker, H. R., Garcia, A. K., Yang, Z. Y., Chang, S. D., Feinsilber, H., ... & Seefeldt, L. C. (2024). Ancient nitrogenases are ATP dependent. Mbio, e01271-24. https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/mbio.01271-24

Bruno Cuevas Zuviría, Amanda K Garcia, Alex J Rivier, Holly R Rucker, Brooke M Carruthers, Betül Kaçar, Emergence of an orphan nitrogenase protein following atmospheric oxygenation, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2024;, msae067, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msae067

Russell, S. J., Garcia, A. K., & Kaçar, B. (2024). A CRISPR interference system for engineering biological nitrogen fixation. Msystems, 9(3), e00155-24. https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/msystems.00155-24

McGrath, K. M., Russell, S. J., Fer, E., Garmendia, E., Hosgel, A., Baltrus, D. A., & Kaçar, B. (2024). Fitness benefits of a synonymous substitution in an ancient EF-Tu gene depend on the genetic background. Journal of Bacteriology, 206(2), e00329-23. https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/jb.00329-23

Marshall, B., Amritkar, K., Wolfe, M., Kaçar, B., & Landick, R. (2023). Evolutionary flexibility and rigidity in the bacterial methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway. Frontiers in Microbiology, 14, 1286626. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1286626/full

Peng, Z., Adam, Z. R., Fahrenbach, A. C., & Kaçar, B. (2023). Assessment of stoichiometric autocatalysis across element groups. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(41), 22483-22493. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.3c07041

Cuevas-Zuviría, B., Fer, E., Adam, Z. R., & Kaçar, B. (2023). The modular biochemical reaction network structure of cellular translation. npj Systems Biology and Applications, 9(1), 52. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41540-023-00315-3

Garcia, A. K., Harris, D. F., Rivier, A. J., Carruthers, B. M., Pinochet-Barros, A., Seefeldt, L. C., & Kaçar, B. (2023). Nitrogenase resurrection and the evolution of a singular enzymatic mechanism. Elife, 12, e85003. https://elifesciences.org/articles/85003

Kędzior, M., Garcia, A. K., Li, M., Taton, A., Adam, Z. R., Young, J. N., & Kaçar, B. (2022). Resurrected Rubisco suggests uniform carbon isotope signatures over geologic time. Cell reports, 39(4). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124722004879

Garcia, A. K., Cavanaugh, C. M., & Kacar, B. (2021). The curious consistency of carbon biosignatures over billions of years of Earth-life coevolution. The ISME Journal, 15(8), 2183-2194. https://academic.oup.com/ismej/article/15/8/2183/7474499

Goldman AD and Kacar B. (2021) Cofactors are Remnants of Life's Origin and Early Evolution (J Mol Evol) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-020-09988-4 

Venkataram S, Monasky R, Hadjizadeh SS, Kryazhimskiy S and Kacar B. (2020) Evolutionary stalling and the limit on the power of natural selection to improve a cellular module (PNAS) https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1921881117

Garcia, A. K., McShea, H., Kolaczkowski, B., & Kaçar, B. (2020). Reconstructing the evolutionary history of nitrogenases: Evidence for ancestral molybdenum‐cofactor utilization. Geobiology, 18(3), 394-411. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gbi.12381

Kacar B, Garcia AK, Anbar A. (2020) Evolutionary History of Bioessential Elements Can Guide the Search for Life in the Universe (ChemBioChem) https://doi.org/10.1002/cbic.202000500

Liberles D, Chang B, Geiler‑Samerotte K, Goldman Aaron,  Hey J, Kaçar B, Meyer M, Murphy W, Posada D, Storfer A. (2020) Emerging Frontiers in the Study of Molecular Evolution (J Mo Evol, Editorial) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-020-09932-6

Garcia AK and Kacar B. (2019) How to resurrect ancestral proteins as proxies for ancient biogeochemistry. Free Radical Biology Medicine. http://doi.org/10.1016/ (Highlighted by NASA Astrobiology Institute)

Kaçar, B., & Womack, Y. (2018). Future shaped by pasts that could have been. Journal of Design and Science. https://doi.org/10.21428/5e41a54a

Domagal-Goldman S. et al. (2018) Life Beyond the Solar System: Remotely Detectable Biosignatures, NASA White Paper LINK

Kacar B, Hanson-Smith V, Adam ZR, Boekelheide N. (2017) Reconstruction and Dynamic Modeling of Ancestral Rubisco Proteins Geobiology, 00:1–13. (Covered in New Scientist, NASA Astrobiology Institute Research Highlights). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gbi.12243

Kacar B, Guy L, Smith E, Baross J. (2017) Resurrecting ancestral genes in bacteria to interpret ancient biosignatures Roy Soc Phil Trans A, 2017;375(2109) doi: 10.1098/rsta.2016.0352.

Kacar B, Ge X, Sanyal S, Gaucher EA. (2017) Experimental evolution of Escherichia coli harboring an ancient translation protein J Mol Evol, 84(2-3):69-84  doi:10.1007/s00239-017-9781-0. (Journal Cover) (MicroJC Discussion video) (Covered in SciWorthy)

Kacar B. (2016) Rolling the Dice Twice: Evolving Reconstructed Ancient Proteins in Extant Organisms Chance in Evolution eds. Pence & Ramsay, University of Chicago Press, 265-276 LINK

Kacar B. Horak R.Astrobiology Primer 2.0, What does the tree of life tell us about how life has evolved? Domagal-Goldman S, Wright K et al,. (2016) Astrobiology 16(8):561-653

Kacar B and Gaucher EA. (2013) Experimental evolution of protein-protein interaction networks Biochem J, 453(3), 311-319 (Covered in Quanta) LINK

Kacar B and Gaucher EA. (2012) Towards the recapitulation of ancient history in the laboratory: Combining synthetic biology with experimental evolution Artificial Life, 13, 11-18 (Covered in Wired, MIT Tech Review, Popular Science, BBC, iO9 and more) LINK