The reaction generates the building blocks of proteins and DNA: amino acids and nucleic acids. Four billion years ago, the Earth looked very different than it does today. It was devoid of life and covered by a vast ocean. Over the course of millions of years, life emerged in that primordial soup.
“We think the kind of reactions we’ve described are probably what could have happened on early Earth,” says Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy.Four billion years ago, the Earth looked very different than it does today. It was devoid of life and covered by a vast ocean. Over the course of millions of years, life emerged in that primordial soup. For a long time, researchers have theorized how molecules came together to spark this transition.
In cells today, amino acids are generated from precursors called α-keto acids using both nitrogen and specialized proteins called enzymes. Scientists have discovered evidence that α-keto acids likely existed early in Earth’s history. However, many researchers have hypothesized that before the advent of cellular life, amino acids must have been generated from completely different precursors, aldehydes, rather than α-keto acids, since enzymes to carry out the conversion did not yet exist.
“We were expecting it to be quite difficult to figure this out, and it turned out to be even simpler than we had imagined,” says Krishnamurthy. “If you mix only the keto, cyanide, and ammonia, it just sits there. As soon as you add carbon dioxide, even trace amounts, the reaction picks up speed.” In the process of studying their chemical soup, Krishnamurthy and his colleagues discovered that a byproduct of the same reaction is orotate, a precursor to nucleotides that make up DNA and. This indicates that the same primordial soup, under the right conditions, could have given rise to a large number of the molecules that are required for the key elements of life.
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