Simple Formation of an Abiotic Porphyrinogen in Aqueous Solution

Lindsey, Jonathan S.; Ptaszek, Marcin; Taniguchi, Masahiko

doi:10.1007/s11084-009-9168-3

Cited by 42 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Of the four possible isomers, the type III isomer is the only unsymmetrical variant, and it could be that nature has selected this lack of symmetry as a molecular handle or reference point for further modification of the molecule (148). However, the type III isomer is also the most abundant isomer formed when PBG is left under acidic (nonenzymatic) conditions, suggesting that this variant would have been more prevalent within a prebiotic soup and therefore more available for biological selection (149).…”

Section: Dailey Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Prokaryotic Heme Biosynthesis: Multiple Pathways to a Common Essential Product

Dailey

Gerdes³

et al. 2017

Microbiol Mol Biol Rev

270

335

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SUMMARY The advent of heme during evolution allowed organisms possessing this compound to safely and efficiently carry out a variety of chemical reactions that otherwise were difficult or impossible. While it was long assumed that a single heme biosynthetic pathway existed in nature, over the past decade, it has become clear that there are three distinct pathways among prokaryotes, although all three pathways utilize a common initial core of three enzymes to produce the intermediate uroporphyrinogen III. The most ancient pathway and the only one found in the Archaea converts siroheme to protoheme via an oxygen-independent four-enzyme-step process. Bacteria utilize the initial core pathway but then add one additional common step to produce coproporphyrinogen III. Following this step, Gram-positive organisms oxidize coproporphyrinogen III to coproporphyrin III, insert iron to make coproheme, and finally decarboxylate coproheme to protoheme, whereas Gram-negative bacteria first decarboxylate coproporphyrinogen III to protoporphyrinogen IX and then oxidize this to protoporphyrin IX prior to metal insertion to make protoheme. In order to adapt to oxygen-deficient conditions, two steps in the bacterial pathways have multiple forms to accommodate oxidative reactions in an anaerobic environment. The regulation of these pathways reflects the diversity of bacterial metabolism. This diversity, along with the late recognition that three pathways exist, has significantly slowed advances in this field such that no single organism's heme synthesis pathway regulation is currently completely characterized.

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Section: Dailey Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Prokaryotic Heme Biosynthesis: Multiple Pathways to a Common Essential Product

Dailey

Gerdes³

et al. 2017

Microbiol Mol Biol Rev

270

335

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“…This might suggest the existence of an additional MK biosynthetic pathway. Of course one could also argue that non-enzymatic haem synthesis, which does work [238], is the ancestral state used by the common ancestor. However, a more problematic aspect of the cytochromes first model is that, in that view, both methanogens and acetogens are seen as very late and highly derived evolutionary lineages [212], whereas isotope evidence has it that methanogens are ancient [164] and comparative physiology would have it that the core biochemistry of both methanogens and acetogens is ancient [44,73,160].…”

Section: Haem and Menaquinonementioning

confidence: 99%

Early bioenergetic evolution

Sousa

Thiergart

Landan

et al. 2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

232

256

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Life is the harnessing of chemical energy in such a way that the energy-harnessing device makes a copy of itself. This paper outlines an energetically feasible path from a particular inorganic setting for the origin of life to the first free-living cells. The sources of energy available to early organic synthesis, early evolving systems and early cells stand in the foreground, as do the possible mechanisms of their conversion into harnessable chemical energy for synthetic reactions. With regard to the possible temporal sequence of events, we focus on: (i) alkaline hydrothermal vents as the far-from-equilibrium setting, (ii) the Wood–Ljungdahl (acetyl-CoA) pathway as the route that could have underpinned carbon assimilation for these processes, (iii) biochemical divergence, within the naturally formed inorganic compartments at a hydrothermal mound, of geochemically confined replicating entities with a complexity below that of free-living prokaryotes, and (iv) acetogenesis and methanogenesis as the ancestral forms of carbon and energy metabolism in the first free-living ancestors of the eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively. In terms of the main evolutionary transitions in early bioenergetic evolution, we focus on: (i) thioester-dependent substrate-level phosphorylations, (ii) harnessing of naturally existing proton gradients at the vent–ocean interface via the ATP synthase, (iii) harnessing of Na+ gradients generated by H+/Na+ antiporters, (iv) flavin-based bifurcation-dependent gradient generation, and finally (v) quinone-based (and Q-cycle-dependent) proton gradient generation. Of those five transitions, the first four are posited to have taken place at the vent. Ultimately, all of these bioenergetic processes depend, even today, upon CO2 reduction with low-potential ferredoxin (Fd), generated either chemosynthetically or photosynthetically, suggesting a reaction of the type ‘reduced iron → reduced carbon’ at the beginning of bioenergetic evolution.

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“…Many Urey-Miller-type experiments have readily produced oligopyrroles and porphyrins abiotically using various sources of energy, including electrical discharges (Hodgson and Ponnamperuma, 1968;Simionescu et al, 1978), UV irradiation (Szutka, 1964;Hodgson and Baker, 1967;Meierhenrich et al, 2005), and high temperatures of 70-100 • C, compatible with a prebiotic milieu (Lindsey et al, 2009). Porphyrin-like substances have even been found in meteorites (Hodgson and Baker, 1964) and Precambrian rocks (Kolesnikov and Egorov, 1977).…”

Section: World Of Pigment-carrying Protocells (Earlymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamental molecules of life are pigments which arose and co-evolved as a response to the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating the prevailing solar spectrum

Michaelian

Simeonov²

2015

Biogeosciences

112

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Abstract. The driving force behind the origin and evolution of life has been the thermodynamic imperative of increasing the entropy production of the biosphere through increasing the global solar photon dissipation rate. In the upper atmosphere of today, oxygen and ozone derived from life processes are performing the short-wavelength UV-C and UV-B dissipation. On Earth's surface, water and organic pigments in water facilitate the near-UV and visible photon dissipation. The first organic pigments probably formed, absorbed, and dissipated at those photochemically active wavelengths in the UV-C and UV-B that could have reached Earth's surface during the Archean. Proliferation of these pigments can be understood as an autocatalytic photochemical process obeying non-equilibrium thermodynamic directives related to increasing solar photon dissipation rate. Under these directives, organic pigments would have evolved over time to increase the global photon dissipation rate by (1) increasing the ratio of their effective photon cross sections to their physical size, (2) decreasing their electronic excited state lifetimes, (3) quenching radiative de-excitation channels (e.g., fluorescence), (4) covering ever more completely the prevailing solar spectrum, and (5) proliferating and dispersing to cover an ever greater surface area of Earth. From knowledge of the evolution of the spectrum of G-type stars, and considering the most probable history of the transparency of Earth's atmosphere, we construct the most probable Earth surface solar spectrum as a function of time and compare this with the history of molecular absorption maxima obtained from the available data in the literature. This comparison supports the conjecture that many fundamental molecules of life are pigments which arose, proliferated, and co-evolved as a response to dissipating the solar spectrum, supports the thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life, constrains models for Earth's early atmosphere, and sheds some new light on the origin of photosynthesis.

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Simple Formation of an Abiotic Porphyrinogen in Aqueous Solution

Cited by 42 publications

References 94 publications

Prokaryotic Heme Biosynthesis: Multiple Pathways to a Common Essential Product

Prokaryotic Heme Biosynthesis: Multiple Pathways to a Common Essential Product

Early bioenergetic evolution

Fundamental molecules of life are pigments which arose and co-evolved as a response to the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating the prevailing solar spectrum

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