Synthesis of the building blocks of life through a glyoxylate-based protometabolism

The aldol addition of glyxoylate to pyruvate or oxaloacetate in water at neutral pH initiates a cycle of reactions that replicates a primitive oxidative metabolism to generate metabolic intermediates and polymer building blocks found in modern biology. In addition to its role in the abiotic supply of complex organics, the reaction pathway may have served as a template for the modern citric acid cycle

A Protometabolic One-Pot Synthesis of Orotate and Pyruvate

A reaction between two glycine derivatives generates both the nucleobase orotate, a precursor of biological pyrimidines, and pyruvate, a core metabolite in the citric acid cycle and amino acid biosynthesis. The reaction proceeds in water at mild pH and temperature to provide significant yields of the two widely divergent chemical motifs. Thio substitution within the orotate ring enables the generation of nucleoside derivatives. The identification of compatible reactants and conditions that provide multiple building blocks may increase the plausibility of complex biopolymers emerging early in a protometabolism

Prebiotic synthesis of α-amino acids and orotate from α-ketoacids potentiates transition to extant metabolic pathways

The Strecker reaction of aldehydes is the pre-eminent pathway to explain the prebiotic origins of α-amino acids. However, biology employs transamination of α-ketoacids to synthesize amino acids which are then transformed to nucleobases, implying an evolutionary switch—abiotically or biotically—of a prebiotic pathway involving the Strecker reaction into today’s biosynthetic pathways. Here we show that α-ketoacids react with cyanide and ammonia sources to form the corresponding α-amino acids through the Bucherer–Bergs pathway. An efficient prebiotic transformation of oxaloacetate to aspartate via N-carbamoyl aspartate enables the simultaneous formation of dihydroorotate, paralleling the biochemical synthesis of orotate as the precursor to pyrimidine nucleobases. Glyoxylate forms both glycine and orotate and reacts with malonate and urea to form aspartate and dihydroorotate. These results, along with the previously demonstrated protometabolic analogues of the Krebs cycle, suggest that there can be a natural emergence of congruent forerunners of biological pathways with the potential for seamless transition from prebiotic chemistry to modern metabolism

A plausible metal-free ancestral analogue of the Krebs cycle composed entirely of α-ketoacids

Efforts to decipher the prebiotic roots of metabolic pathways have focused on recapitulating modern biological transformations, with metals typically serving in place of cofactors and enzymes. Here we show that the reaction of glyoxylate with pyruvate under mild aqueous conditions produces a series of α-ketoacid analogues of the reductive citric acid cycle without the need for metals or enzyme catalysts. The transformations proceed in the same sequence as the reverse Krebs cycle, resembling a protometabolic pathway, with glyoxylate acting as both the carbon source and reducing agent. Furthermore, the α-ketoacid analogues provide a natural route for the synthesis of amino acids by transamination with glycine, paralleling the extant metabolic mechanisms and obviating the need for metal-catalysed abiotic reductive aminations. This emerging sequence of prebiotic reactions could have set the stage for the advent of increasingly sophisticated pathways operating under catalytic control

The Abiotic Oxidation of Organic Acids to Malonate

The nucleophilicity of the α-carbon of malonate, coupled with its potential for subsequent decarboxylation, makes it an intriguing building block in prebiotic chemical scenarios. In this work, a variety of citric acid cycle (TCA) intermediates is shown to unexpectedly generate malonate in an oxidizing environment. The reactions are facile in aqueous solution containing hydrogen peroxide, a prevalent abiotic oxidant. In modern metabolism, malonate is a carbon source for acetyl-CoA. Additionally, its thioester is the substrate for the biosynthesis of both fatty acids and polyketides. The data presented herein may hint at how an early link was formed between polyketide, fatty acid, and TCA pathways

From formamide to purine: an energetically viable mechanistic reaction pathway

A step-by-step mechanistic pathway following the transformation of formamide to purine through a five-membered ring intermediate has been explored by density functional theory computations. The highlight of the mechanistic route detailed here is that the proposed pathway represents the simplest reaction pathway. All necessary reactants are generated from a single starting compound, formamide, through energetically viable reactions. Several important reaction steps are involved in this mechanistic route: formylation-dehydration, Leuckart reduction, five- and six-membered ring-closure, and deamination. On the basis of the study of noncatalytic pathways, catalytic water has been found to provide energetically viable step-by-step mechanistic pathways. Among these reaction steps, five-member ring-closure is the rate-determining step. The energy barrier (ca. 42 kcal/mol) of this rate-control step is somewhat lower than the rate-determining step (ca. 44 kcal/mol) for a pyrimidine-based pathway reported previously. The mechanistic pathway reported herein is less energetically demanding than for previously proposed routes to adenine

From formamide to purine: a self-catalyzed reaction pathway provides a feasible mechanism for the entire process

A formamide self-catalyzed mechanistic pathway that transforms formamide to purine through a five-membered ring intermediate has been explored by density functional theory calculations. The highlight of the mechanistic route detailed here is that the proposed pathway represents the simplest and lowest energy reaction pathway. All necessary reactants, including catalysts, are generated from a single initial compound, formamide. The most catalytically effective form of formamide is found to be the imidic acid isomer. The catalytic effect of formamide has been found to be much more significant than that of water. The self-catalytic mechanism revealed here provides a pathway with the lowest energy barriers among all reaction routes previously published. Several important reaction steps are involved in this mechanistic route: formylation-dehydration, Leuckart reduction, five- and six-member ring-closing, and deamination. Overall, a five-membered ring-closing is the rate-determining step in the present catalytic route, which is consistent with our previous mechanistic investigations. The activation energy of this rate-controlling step (ca. 27 kcal/mol) is significantly lower than the rate-determining step (ca. 34 kcal/mol) in the pathway from 4-aminoimidazole-5-carboxamidine described by Schleyer\u27s group (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2007, 104, 17272-17277) and in the pyrimidine pathway (ca. 44 kcal/mol) reported by Sponer et al. (J. Phys. Chem. A 2012, 116, 720-726). The self-catalyzed mechanistic pathway reported herein is less energetically demanding than previously proposed routes

From formamide to adenine: a self-catalytic mechanism for an abiotic approach

Mechanisms for abiotic reaction pathways from formamide (H2NCHO) to adenine are presented herein. Formamide is a simple C1 building block hypothesized to be a precursor to many protometabolic compounds. On the basis of a step-by-step mechanism of the reaction pathways, formamide is suggested to be more reactive in addition reactions than HCN. In addition to its simplicity, the formamide self-catalyzed mechanism is energetically (kinetically) more viable than either a water-catalyzed mechanism or noncatalyzed processes. Moreover, this self-catalyzed mechanism accounts for the yields of purine and adenine previously observed in experiments. This mechanism may elucidate processes that were vital for the emergence of life on the early earth

Linked cycles of oxidative decarboxylation of glyoxylate as protometabolic analogs of the citric acid cycle

The development of metabolic approaches towards understanding the origins of life, which have focused mainly on the citric acid (TCA) cycle, have languished—primarily due to a lack of experimentally demonstrable and sustainable cycle(s) of reactions. We show here the existence of a protometabolic analog of the TCA involving two linked cycles, which convert glyoxylate into CO2 and produce aspartic acid in the presence of ammonia. The reactions proceed from either pyruvate, oxaloacetate or malonate in the presence of glyoxylate as the carbon source and hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant under neutral aqueous conditions and at mild temperatures. The reaction pathway demonstrates turnover under controlled conditions. These results indicate that simpler versions of metabolic cycles could have emerged under potential prebiotic conditions, laying the foundation for the appearance of more sophisticated metabolic pathways once control by (polymeric) catalysts became available