By analyzing how metabolic enzymes are built and organized, researchers have reconstructed the evolutionary history of metabolism. Their study shows how metabolic networks – which drive every cellular process from protein building to DNA repair – became less random, more modular and more hierarchical over time, the researchers say.

Their study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, shines a light on the patchwork process that allowed cells to shape the metabolic pathways into what they are today, the researchers report.