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<\/div>Chemical reactions in volcanic pools could have helped life get going on Earth<\/p>\n
Michael S. Nolan\/Alamy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
One of the most important molecules in living organisms has been synthesised from scratch under everyday conditions. The finding suggests that the chemical could have formed naturally early in our planet\u2019s history and played a role in the origins of life.<\/p>\n
The substance in question is called pantetheine. It isn\u2019t a household name on the level of DNA or protein. However, pantetheine is the key component of a larger molecule called acetyl coenzyme A,<\/a>\u00a0a \u201ccofactor\u201d that helps enzymes to work.<\/p>\n \u201cCoenzyme A is in every organism ever sequenced,\u201d says Matthew Powner<\/a> at University College London.<\/p>\n Powner has spent most of his career finding ways to make biological molecules from simple chemicals in ways that could have occurred naturally. In the past decade, he has shown that simple aminonitriles<\/a> can be used to make nucleotides<\/a> \u2013 the building blocks of DNA \u2013 and peptides,<\/a>\u00a0short versions of proteins.<\/p>\n His team has now shown that aminonitriles can be used to make pantetheine in a series of reactions starting with simple chemicals like formaldehyde. This took place in water, often at concentrations so dilute that the reaction mixtures looked like clear water. Sometimes the team used heat to speed things up, but otherwise didn\u2019t need to intervene once the reactions were under way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just all one pot \u2013 literally just throw it all in, don\u2019t change anything, don\u2019t do anything \u2013 and we get 60 per cent yield of our product,\u201d says Powner.<\/p>\n Acetyl coenzyme A is involved in the synthesis of several biologically crucial chemicals. Some of the oldest groups of microorganisms use processes involving it to obtain carbon from the environment.<\/p>\n Crucially, pantetheine is the active part of the acetyl coenzyme A molecule. The other bit \u201cisn\u2019t essential to its function\u201d, says Powner.<\/p>\n Cofactors of this sort are found in all living organisms. They have been described as remnants of life\u2019s origin and early evolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cObtaining any key organic biological cofactor from scratch\u201d would be impressive, \u201clet alone one of such central importance\u201d, says Zachary Adam<\/a> at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research.<\/p>\n For Adam, the significance of the study goes beyond pantetheine and acetyl coenzyme A. \u201cThey are reporting this particular part of the cofactor, but the intermediates are being shown to be just as important,\u201d he says. Other chemicals produced along the way have been shown to help make other biological molecules. \u201cThey\u2019re building out this network of compounds.\u201d<\/p>\n Many ideas about the origins of life have assumed that a small set of biological molecules formed long before the others. For instance, the \u201cRNA world\u201d hypothesis states that the first life was made solely of RNA, with other chemicals like proteins and lipids being added later once the RNA was capable of making them.<\/p>\n Powner is one of several researchers pushing for a different scenario<\/a>, in which many key molecules formed early and interacted from the beginning. \u201cAll of these products can be a product of the same chemical reactions,\u201d he says. Rather than starting with just RNA or just peptides, \u201cit could be easier to make all of them together, and then the chemistries that they do are integrated from the origin\u201d.<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n