October 20, 2024. In life on modern Earth, enzymes made of protein catalyze the formation of most other types of biopolymers. These enzymes have been evolving for billions of years and have become very efficient at assembling nucleic acid, carbohydrate, and lipid biopolymers from their monomer parts. The enzymes are biopolymers themselves, which presents an intriguing challenge for origins researchers.
If biopolymers are required to make other biopolymers, how did the first biopolymers emerge? To address this question, PI Loren Williams, Collaborator Moran Frenkel-Pinter and student Rotem Edri of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have been reviewing the condensation-dehydration reactions that occur under oscillating water activity. These reactions are of interest because the enzymatic polymerization of monomers is a dehydration (or water producing) step.
In a new review in Accounts of Chemical Research, Edri and coauthors demonstrate how prebiotic catalysis by small molecules could have evolved and promoted chemical evolution, leading to increasing complexity and some of the core processes of contemporary biocatalysis. The role of water as a metabolite for promoting complexification over chemical evolution is highlighted.
