ArticleMolecular systems biology2014
Non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway-like reactions in a plausible Archean ocean.
Article in Molecular systems biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 106 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
106 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Intermediate stages in the origin of metabolism at a phosphorylating hydrothermal vent.Science advances · 2026Article
- Protein folds and catalytic strategies at the origin of biological CO2 fixation.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- The return of metabolism: biochemistry and physiology of glycolysis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Photo/Biohybrid Catalytic System for Application in Semiartificial Photosynthesis of COChemical reviews · 2026Review
- Nonliving respiration: Another breath in the soil?Science advances · 2025Article
- The Origin of Life and Cellular Systems: A Continuum from Prebiotic Chemistry to Biodiversity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Review
- Preferential survival of prebiotic metallopeptides in the presence of ultraviolet light.Chemical science · 2025Article
- Permeability selection of biologically relevant membranes matches the stereochemistry of life on Earth.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Origin of the RNA World in Cold Hadean Geothermal Fields Enriched in Zinc and Potassium: Abiogenesis as a Positive Fallout from the Moon-Forming Impact?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Exploring glycolytic enzymes in disease: potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in neurodegeneration, cancer and parasitic infections.Open biology · 2025Review
- The early evolution of the glycolytic pathway from autotrophic origins to glycogen and back.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- Nonenzymatic Hydration of Phosphoenolpyruvate: General Conditions for Hydration in Protometabolism by Searching Across Pathways.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2025Article
- The ability of pentose pathways to form all essential metabolites provides clues to the origins of metabolism.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Reflections on the Origin of Coded Protein Biosynthesis.Biomolecules · 2024Review
- Architecture, Function, Regulation, and Evolution of α-Glucans Metabolic Enzymes in Prokaryotes.Chemical reviews · 2024Review
- Genome-scale metabolic modelling of extremophiles and its applications in astrobiological environments.Environmental microbiology reports · 2024Review
- Genome-resolved metaproteogenomic and nanosolid characterization of an inactive vent chimney densely colonized by enigmatic DPANN archaea.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Hexose phosphorylation for a non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway on early Earth.Scientific reports · 2024Article
46 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The reaction sequences of central metabolism, glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway provide essential precursors for nucleic acids, amino acids and lipids. However, their evolutionary origins are not yet understood. Here, we provide evidence that their structure could have been fundamentally shaped by the general chemical environments in earth's earliest oceans. We reconstructed potential scenarios for oceans of the prebiotic Archean based on the composition of early sediments. We report that the resultant reaction milieu catalyses the interconversion of metabolites that in modern organisms constitute glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway. The 29 observed reactions include the formation and/or interconversion of glucose, pyruvate, the nucleic acid precursor ribose-5-phosphate and the amino acid precursor erythrose-4-phosphate, antedating reactions sequences similar to that used by the metabolic pathways. Moreover, the Archean ocean mimetic increased the stability of the phosphorylated intermediates and accelerated the rate of intermediate reactions and pyruvate production. The catalytic capacity of the reconstructed ocean milieu was attributable to its metal content. The reactions were particularly sensitive to ferrous iron Fe(II), which is understood to have had high concentrations in the Archean oceans. These observations reveal that reaction sequences that constitute central carbon metabolism could have been constrained by the iron-rich oceanic environment of the early Archean. The origin of metabolism could thus date back to the prebiotic world.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.