At the very beginning of life on Earth: the thiol-rich peptide (TRP) world hypothesis

Vallée, Yannick; Shalayel, Ibrahim; Ly, Kieu Dung; Rao, K. Nageswara; Paëpe, Gaël De; Märker, Katharina; Milet, Anne

doi:10.1387/ijdb.170028yv

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…In this “cyano-sulfidic” world [14], thiol-containing peptides would have been the most important molecules. We propose to name it the “Thiol Rich Peptide (TRP) world” [8]. In such a world, not only dipeptides, but also tripeptides, would have been formed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Reaction of Aminonitriles with Aminothiols: A Way to Thiol-Containing Peptides and Nitrogen Heterocycles in the Primitive Earth Ocean

Shalayel

Coulibaly

et al. 2018

Life

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The Strecker reaction of aldehydes with ammonia and hydrogen cyanide first leads to α-aminonitriles, which are then hydrolyzed to α-amino acids. However, before reacting with water, these aminonitriles can be trapped by aminothiols, such as cysteine or homocysteine, to give 5- or 6-membered ring heterocycles, which in turn are hydrolyzed to dipeptides. We propose that this two-step process enabled the formation of thiol-containing dipeptides in the primitive ocean. These small peptides are able to promote the formation of other peptide bonds and of heterocyclic molecules. Theoretical calculations support our experimental results. They predict that α-aminonitriles should be more reactive than other nitriles, and that imidazoles should be formed from transiently formed amidinonitriles. Overall, this set of reactions delineates a possible early stage of the development of organic chemistry, hence of life, on Earth dominated by nitriles and thiol-rich peptides (TRP).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Starting from α-aminonitriles and cysteine, the expected products of this two-step process are dipeptides (Figure 1). In the early ocean, this could have been an efficient and selective process to thiol-containing dipeptides [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reaction of Aminonitriles with Aminothiols: A Way to Thiol-Containing Peptides and Nitrogen Heterocycles in the Primitive Earth Ocean

Shalayel

Coulibaly

et al. 2018

Life

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“…Hcy, together with Cys and Met, constitute a group of metabolically related sulfur-containing amino acids that may have been important in the origin of life by facilitating the formation peptide bonds in prebiotic peptides (119,326), a role largely preserved in extant organisms (120).…”

Section: Homocysteine Metabolismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Homocysteine Modification in Protein Structure/Function and Human Disease

Jakubowski

2019

Physiological Reviews

194

219

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Epidemiological studies established that elevated homocysteine, an important intermediate in folate, vitamin B12, and one carbon metabolism, is associated with poor health, including heart and brain diseases. Earlier studies show that patients with severe hyperhomocysteinemia, first identified in the 1960s, exhibit neurological and cardiovascular abnormalities and premature death due to vascular complications. Although homocysteine is considered to be a nonprotein amino acid, studies over the past 2 decades have led to discoveries of protein-related homocysteine metabolism and mechanisms by which homocysteine can become a component of proteins. Homocysteine-containing proteins lose their biological function and acquire cytotoxic, proinflammatory, proatherothrombotic, and proneuropathic properties, which can account for the various disease phenotypes associated with hyperhomocysteinemia. This review describes mechanisms by which hyperhomocysteinemia affects cellular proteostasis, provides a comprehensive account of the biological chemistry of homocysteine-containing proteins, and discusses pathophysiological consequences and clinical implications of their formation.

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“…Thus, there were no candidate land-based ‘birthing’ pools to periodically dry out and drive the polymerization of in-falling organic compounds to produce, at best, a picomolar organic soup, which would be of doubtful nutritious value. Such conditions lay nearly a billion years into the future, well after life’s onset, and are irrelevant to the emergence of life [ 137 , 138 , 139 ].…”

Section: The Hadean Water Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?

Russell

2018

Life

126

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Korenaga and coworkers presented evidence to suggest that the Earth’s mantle was dry and water filled the ocean to twice its present volume 4.3 billion years ago. Carbon dioxide was constantly exhaled during the mafic to ultramafic volcanic activity associated with magmatic plumes that produced the thick, dense, and relatively stable oceanic crust. In that setting, two distinct and major types of sub-marine hydrothermal vents were active: ~400 °C acidic springs, whose effluents bore vast quantities of iron into the ocean, and ~120 °C, highly alkaline, and reduced vents exhaling from the cooler, serpentinizing crust some distance from the heads of the plumes. When encountering the alkaline effluents, the iron from the plume head vents precipitated out, forming mounds likely surrounded by voluminous exhalative deposits similar to the banded iron formations known from the Archean. These mounds and the surrounding sediments, comprised micro or nano-crysts of the variable valence FeII/FeIII oxyhydroxide known as green rust. The precipitation of green rust, along with subsidiary iron sulfides and minor concentrations of nickel, cobalt, and molybdenum in the environment at the alkaline springs, may have established both the key bio-syntonic disequilibria and the means to properly make use of them—the elements needed to effect the essential inanimate-to-animate transitions that launched life. Specifically, in the submarine alkaline vent model for the emergence of life, it is first suggested that the redox-flexible green rust micro- and nano-crysts spontaneously precipitated to form barriers to the complete mixing of carbonic ocean and alkaline hydrothermal fluids. These barriers created and maintained steep ionic disequilibria. Second, the hydrous interlayers of green rust acted as engines that were powered by those ionic disequilibria and drove essential endergonic reactions. There, aided by sulfides and trace elements acting as catalytic promoters and electron transfer agents, nitrate could be reduced to ammonia and carbon dioxide to formate, while methane may have been oxidized to methyl and formyl groups. Acetate and higher carboxylic acids could then have been produced from these C1 molecules and aminated to amino acids, and thence oligomerized to offer peptide nests to phosphate and iron sulfides, and secreted to form primitive amyloid-bounded structures, leading conceivably to protocells.

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At the very beginning of life on Earth: the thiol-rich peptide (TRP) world hypothesis

Cited by 18 publications

References 63 publications

The Reaction of Aminonitriles with Aminothiols: A Way to Thiol-Containing Peptides and Nitrogen Heterocycles in the Primitive Earth Ocean

The Reaction of Aminonitriles with Aminothiols: A Way to Thiol-Containing Peptides and Nitrogen Heterocycles in the Primitive Earth Ocean

Homocysteine Modification in Protein Structure/Function and Human Disease

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?

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