Pyruvic Acid Adds Pep To Prebiotic Chemistry

Abstract

In a pressurized reaction vessel designed to simulate conditions at hydrothermal vents deep below the ocean surface, a team of geochemists and biochemists at Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., led by senior staff scientist George D. Cody has cooked up some surprising chemistry. An experiment designed to better understand how transition-metal sulfides help catalyze the synthesis of simple organic acids yielded an unexpected product: very small amounts of pyruvic acid [ Science , 289 ,1337 (2000)]. Pyruvic acid, CH3COCOOH, is one of the more elusive of the molecules that would have been needed for life to arise in the high-pressure world of subocean hydrothermal vents, as some theorists propose. An energetic and relatively unstable molecule, it functions in living cells today as the entry point for a major energysupplying metabolic pathway known as the tricarboxylic acid cycle. It's important, as well, as an intermediate in the synthesis of some amino acids and sugars. ...