The rocky roots of the acetyl-CoA pathway

Abstract

Geologists have suggested that life might have emerged at hydrothermal vents, chemists have shown that metal sulphides such as FeS and NiS can catalyse biochemical reactions in the absence of proteins, and biologists have suggested that the acetyl-coenzyme-A (CoA) pathway of CO 2 fixation might be very ancient. New findings from the enzymes at the heart of the acetyl-CoA pathway, carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) and acetyl-CoA synthase (ACS), indicate that metals and metal sulphides do the biochemical work of CO 2 fixation. Here we propose that biochemistry got started when the two volatiles that were thermodynamically furthest from equilibrium on the early Earth – namely, marine CO 2 from volcanoes and hydrothermal H 2 – met at a hydrothermal vent rich in metal sulphides. In this ‘hydrothermal reactor’ hypothesis, a primitive, inorganically catalysed analogue of the exergonic acetyl-CoA pathway, using H 2 as the initial electron donor and CO 2 as the initial acceptor, was instrumental in the synthesis of organic precursors to fuel primordial biochemical reactions. We suggest that primordial biochemistry was housed in an acetate-producing hydrothermal reactor that retained reduced carbon compounds produced within its naturally forming inorganic confines.