A Prebiotic Precursor to Life's Phosphate Transfer System with an ATP Analog and Histidyl Peptide Organocatalysts.

ABSTRACT: Biochemistry is dependent upon enzyme catalysts accelerating key reactions. At the origin of life, prebiotic chemistry must have incorporated catalytic reactions. While this would have yielded much needed amplification of certain reaction products, it would come at the possible cost of rapidly depleting the high energy molecules that acted as chemical fuels. Biochemistry solves this problem by combining kinetically stable and thermodynamically activated molecules (e.g., ATP) with enzyme catalysts. Here, we demonstrate a prebiotic phosphate transfer system involving an ATP analog (imidazole phosphate) and histidyl peptides, which function as organocatalytic enzyme analogs. We demonstrate that histidyl peptides catalyze phosphorylations via a phosphorylated histidyl intermediate. We integrat

SUBMITTER: Maguire OR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10958518 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature