Abstract For a long time, our understanding of metabolism has been dominated by the idea of biochemical unity, i.e., that the central reaction sequences in metabolism are universally conserved between all forms of life. However, biochemical research in the last decades has revealed a surprising diversity in the central carbon metabolism of different microorganisms. Here, we will embrace this biochemical diversity and explain how genetic redundancy and functional degeneracy cause the diversity observed in central metabolic pathways, such as glycolysis, autotrophic CO2 fixation, and acetyl-CoA assimilation. We conclude that this diversity is not the exception, but rather the standard in microbiology.

中文翻译：

---

生化统一重温：微生物中心碳代谢有新发现、多任务途径和有原因的冗余

摘要 长期以来，我们对代谢的理解一直受到生化统一思想的支配，即代谢中的中心反应序列在所有生命形式之间普遍保守。然而，过去几十年的生化研究揭示了不同微生物的中心碳代谢存在惊人的多样性。在这里，我们将接受这种生化多样性，并解释遗传冗余和功能简并如何导致在中央代谢途径中观察到的多样性，如糖酵解、自养 CO2 固定和乙酰辅酶 A 同化。我们得出结论，这种多样性不是例外，而是微生物学的标准。