ReviewBiochemical Society transactions2014
The RNA world and the origin of metabolic enzymes.
Review in Biochemical Society transactions, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- The return of metabolism: biochemistry and physiology of glycolysis.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Can the origin of biosynthetic routes be explained by a Frankenstein's monster-like spontaneous assembly of prebiotic reactants?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Closing the Loop in the Carbon Cycle: Enzymatic Reactions Housed in Metal-Organic Frameworks for COApplied biochemistry and biotechnology · 2025Review
- Evolution at the Origins of Life?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Biophysical Interactions Underpin the Emergence of Information in the Genetic Code.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Article
- Protometabolism as out-of-equilibrium chemistry.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2022Review
- Cysteine and iron accelerate the formation of ribose-5-phosphate, providing insights into the evolutionary origins of the metabolic network structure.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- The origin of translation.Nature chemistry · 2021Article
- A thermodynamic atlas of carbon redox chemical space.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- The evolution of metabolism: How to test evolutionary hypotheses at the genomic level.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2020Review
- Aptamer-enabled uptake of small molecule ligands.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- An appeal to magic? The discovery of a non-enzymatic metabolism and its role in the origins of life.The Biochemical journal · 2018Review
- Linked cycles of oxidative decarboxylation of glyoxylate as protometabolic analogs of the citric acid cycle.Nature communications · 2018Article
- Nonenzymatic gluconeogenesis-like formation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate in ice.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Sulfate radicals enable a non-enzymatic Krebs cycle precursor.Nature ecology & evolution · 2017Article
- Conditional iron and pH-dependent activity of a non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway.Science advances · 2016Article
- The widespread role of non-enzymatic reactions in cellular metabolism.Current opinion in biotechnology · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
An RNA world has been placed centre stage for explaining the origin of life. Indeed, RNA is the most plausible molecule able to form both a (self)-replicator and to inherit information, necessities for initiating genetics. However, in parallel with self-replication, the proto-organism had to obtain the ability to catalyse supply of its chemical constituents, including the ribonucleotide metabolites required to replicate RNA. Although the possibility of an RNA-catalysed metabolic network has been considered, it is to be questioned whether RNA molecules, at least on their own, possess the required catalytic capacities. An alternative scenario for the origin of metabolism involves chemical reactions that are based on environmental catalysts. Recently, we described a non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway-like reactions catalysed by metal ions [mainly Fe(II)] and phosphate, simple inorganic molecules abundantly found in Archaean sediments. While the RNA world can serve to explain the origin of genetics, the origin of the metabolic network might thus date back to constraints of environmental chemistry. Interestingly, considering a metal-catalysed origin of metabolism gives rise to an attractive hypothesis about how the first enzymes could have formed: simple RNA or (poly)peptide molecules could have bound the metal ions, and thus increased their solubility, concentration and accessibility. In a second step, this would have allowed substrate specificity to evolve.
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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.