Early Earth conditions could have supported the production of essential life chemicals

One of the most important molecules in living organisms is synthesized from scratch under everyday conditions. The discovery suggests that this chemical formed naturally early in Earth's history and may have played a role in the origin of life.

The substance in question is called pantetheine. It is not a well-known name at the DNA or protein level. However, pantetheine is an important component of a larger molecule called pantetheine. acetyl coenzyme A, A “cofactor” that helps enzymes work.

“Coenzyme A is present in every organism ever sequenced,” he says. Matthew Powner At University College London.

Powner has spent most of his career discovering ways to make biomolecules from simple chemicals in a way that can occur naturally. Over the past decade, he has shown that: aminonitrile can be used to make nucleotide – the building blocks of DNA – and peptide, Short version of protein.

His team has now shown that aminonitrile can be used to make pantetheine in a series of reactions starting with simple chemicals like formaldehyde. This was done in water, often at such dilute concentrations that the reaction mixture appeared like clear water. The team sometimes used heat to speed up their work, but otherwise did not need to intervene once the reaction started.

“We just put everything in one pot. We literally just throw everything in, we don't change anything, we don't do anything, and we have a 60% yield of product,” Powner says.

Acetyl coenzyme A is involved in the synthesis of several biologically important chemicals. Some of the oldest microbial groups use processes involving microorganisms to obtain carbon from the environment.

Importantly, pantetheine is the active portion of the acetyl-coenzyme A molecule. No more than one bit is “essential to its functionality,” Powner says.

This type of cofactor is present in all living organisms.They are described as follows Origin of life and remnants of early evolution.

“Obtaining key organic biological cofactors from scratch,” he says, is impressive, “not to mention one of such centrally important ones.” Zachary Adam from the University of Wisconsin-Madison was not involved in the study.

For Adam, the importance of this research extends beyond pantetheine and acetyl coenzyme A. “They report this particular part of the cofactor, but intermediates have been shown to be important as well,” he says. Other chemicals produced in the process have been shown to aid in the production of other biomolecules. “They're building a network of compounds.”

Many ideas about the origin of life have assumed that a small set of biomolecules formed long before other molecules. For example, the “RNA world” hypothesis states that first life was made solely of RNA, and other chemicals such as proteins and lipids were added after RNA was able to make them. .

Powner is one of several researchers pushing for an alternative scenario in which many important molecules form early and interact from the beginning. “These products can all be products of the same chemical reaction,” he says. Rather than starting with just RNA, or just peptides, “it might be easier to make them all together, so the chemical reactions they perform are integrated from the original state.”