Mapping metabolism onto the prebiotic organic chemistry of hydrothermal vents

Deep-sea hydrothermal vents provide a chemical interface between Earth's reducing core and its oxidizing oceans. Today these environments support diverse chemosynthetic ecosystems (1), and after being discovered, they were soon proposed as the original site for the emergence of life (2). These hypotheses have considerable appeal but have not been universally accepted, partly because many aspects of the proposed scenarios remain experimentally unconstrained. In particular, much remains unknown about what forms of prebiotic organic chemistry could have been possible at vents, and whether they could have produced abundant biological precursors. Addressing these questions is thus a critical challenge for research on the origin of life. In PNAS, Novikov and Copley (3) take a major next step in addressing this challenge, developing a unique experimental instrument to systematically explore simulated hydrothermal vent chemistry. The authors focus on the chemistry of pyruvate, which has both a central role in modern metabolism and was plausibly formed prebiotically at hydrothermal vents (4).

[1]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  Before enzymes and templates: theory of surface metabolism. , 1988, Microbiological reviews.

[2]  W. Martin,et al.  Hydrothermal vents and the origin of life , 2008, Nature Reviews Microbiology.

[3]  S. Copley,et al.  Reactivity landscape of pyruvate under simulated hydrothermal vent conditions , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  Everett Shock,et al.  Merging Genomes with Geochemistry in Hydrothermal Ecosystems , 2002, Science.

[5]  Patricia Amara,et al.  Structure–function relationships of anaerobic gas-processing metalloenzymes , 2009, Nature.

[6]  Eric Smith,et al.  The Emergence and Early Evolution of Biological Carbon-Fixation , 2012, PLoS Comput. Biol..

[7]  G. Cody,et al.  Primordial carbonylated iron-sulfur compounds and the synthesis of pyruvate. , 2000, Science.

[8]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  Activated acetic acid by carbon fixation on (Fe,Ni)S under primordial conditions. , 1997, Science.

[9]  Eric Smith,et al.  The compositional and evolutionary logic of metabolism , 2012, Physical biology.

[10]  John A. Baross,et al.  Submarine hydrothermal vents and associated gradient environments as sites for the origin and evolution of life , 1985, Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere.

[11]  G. Cody.  TRANSITION METAL SULFIDES AND THE ORIGINS OF METABOLISM , 2004 .

[12]  G. Cody,et al.  Geochemical roots of autotrophic carbon fixation: Hydrothermal experiments in the system citric acid, H 2 O-(FeS)-(NiS) , 2001 .

[13]  M. Russell,et al.  The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front , 1997, Journal of the Geological Society.

[14]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  α-Hydroxy and α-Amino Acids Under Possible Hadean, Volcanic Origin-of-Life Conditions , 2006, Science.

[15]  Eric Smith,et al.  Universality in intermediary metabolism. , 2004, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[16]  A. Lauwers,et al.  Organic sulfur compounds resulting from the interaction of iron sulfide, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide in an anaerobic aqueous environment , 1996, Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere.

[17]  P. Falkowski,et al.  Anoxic photochemical oxidation of siderite generates molecular hydrogen and iron oxides , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[18]  G. Cody,et al.  Assaying the catalytic potential of transition metal sulfides for abiotic carbon fixation , 2004 .