Scientists have managed to synthesize in the laboratory a chemical compound essential for living beings on Earth. Here’s what you need to know
Scientists have managed to synthesize in the laboratory a chemical compound essential for living beings, under conditions that could have occurred on early Earth. The study was conducted by researchers at UCL. The compound, the the mortgageis the active fragment of coenzyme A. It is important for metabolism, the chemical processes that maintain life. they had failed to synthesize pantethine, suggesting that it was absent at the origin of life on Earth. In the new study, scientists created the compound in room-temperature water using molecules formed from hydrogen cyanide, which was likely abundant on early Earth.
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The results of the study
For scientists, pantethine may have aided the chemical reactions that led to it, about 4 billion years ago. This study challenges the belief that life originated in water. Energy-rich molecules called aminonitriles would have driven the reactions that eventually produced pantethine. They are chemically related to amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and life.
The basis of life on Earth
Professor Powner, author of the study, said: “It is further evidence that the basic structures of biology, the primary molecules on which biology is based, were formed through the chemistry of nitrile. Our future work will examine how these molecules came together, how the chemistry of pantethine talks to RNA, peptides and lipids, for example, to provide chemistry that the individual could not provide in isolation.”
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