Evidence of key ingredient during dawn of life

Before there were cells on Earth, simple, tiny catalysts most likely evolved the ability to speed up and synchronize the chemical reactions necessary for life to rise from the primordial soup. But what those catalysts were, how they appeared at the same time, and how they evolved into the two modern superfamilies of enzymes that translate our genetic code have not been understood.

In the Journal of Biological Chemistry, scientists from the UNC School of Medicine provide the first direct experimental evidence for how primordial proteins developed the ability to accelerate the central chemical reaction necessary to synthesize proteins and thus allow life to arise not long after Earth was created.

This finding provides another insight into the dramatic inventions nature made as prebiotic chemistry evolved into life billions of years ago. Earlier this month, Carter and his UNC colleague Richard Wolfenden, PhD, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences more evidence for how amino acids were selected to match with a genetic blueprint to form proteins, the machines of living cells.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150618122057.htm