The Impact of Oxygen on Metabolic Evolution: A Chemoinformatic Investigation
Figure 4
Chemical space of anaerobic and aerobic metabolites defined by the first two factors from an analysis of 20 descriptors.
Aerobic metabolites (in blue) preferentially occupy the left and upper parts of the space, while anaerobic metabolites (in red) concentrate in the relatively lower part. Oxygen appears to have greatly helped metabolism to explore a wider chemical space.