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A possible non-biological reaction framework for metabolic processes on early Earth

Early life forms established a network of reactions for converting carbon dioxide into organic compounds. A non-biological system of reactions that could have formed the network’s core on ancient Earth has been reported.
  1. Robert Pascal

    1. Robert Pascal is at the Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron, CNRS, University of Montpellier, ENSCM, 34095 Montpellier, France.

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All biological molecules used by living organisms are themselves synthesized by living organisms. The development of routes for making organic matter was therefore an essential early step in the emergence of life on Earth. A complex network of reactions must have arisen to make organic molecules from carbon dioxide, or possibly from other inorganic sources of carbon such as carbon monoxide or cyanides, but the process involved remains largely unknown. In a paper in Nature, Muchowska et al.1 demonstrate experimentally that a suitable complex reaction network can develop from just two simple organic constituents, namely, glyoxylate (HCOCO2−) and pyruvate (CH3COCO2−), in the presence of ferrous iron (Fe2+).

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Nature 569, 47-49 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01322-3

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