Scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have identified how complex metabolism could spontaneously arise from simple organic matter. The results of the scientific work, published in the journal Chemical Communications, explain the emergence of the first living things on Earth.
Researchers have studied a possible mechanism for the formation of thioesters – organic compounds that contain a high-energy carbon-sulfur bond. It is assumed that thioethers could serve as an ancient version of energy carriers, providing the course of chemical reactions, for example, ATP, without which the existence of living organisms is impossible. Modern living things continue to use thioesters to break down sugars and produce protein from amino acids.
It turned out that thioacid (a compound formed from organic acid and hydrogen sulfide), present in volcanic gases, easily reacts with simple sulfur-containing thiol compounds to form reactive thioesters. This reaction proceeds easily in water and, possibly, served as an impetus for the development of more complex biochemical reactions.
A by-product of the reaction is iron-sulfur clusters, which in living organisms play the role of protein cofactors that carry out redox reactions. For example, without them, photosynthesis would be impossible, in which electrons are transferred from water molecules to produce sugars and oxygen.
