ArticleNature chemistry2017
UV-light-driven prebiotic synthesis of iron-sulfur clusters.
Article in Nature chemistry, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
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Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 159 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional abiotic metabolite assembly hypothesis for the early events in the origin of life.Nature communications · 2026Review
- The Ascent of Miniproteins.Biochemistry · 2026Review
- Iron-sulfur cofactors in nucleic acid metabolism and protein synthesis: Assembly, delivery, and putative roles in cellular and viral systems.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Review
- Proteinoid Computing on Olivine Substrates.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2026Article
- Metal-ion mediated photolytic regulation of diphenylalanine stability: Implications for prebiotic chemical evolution.iScience · 2026Article
- Coenzyme-protein interactions since early life.eLife · 2025Article
- Article
- On the emergence of metabolism: the evolution of proteins that powered life.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Preferential survival of prebiotic metallopeptides in the presence of ultraviolet light.Chemical science · 2025Article
- On the Origin of Information Dynamics in Early Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Prebiotic chemistry and protocells during the faint young sun event.Biophysical reviews · 2024Article
- Iron: Life's primeval transition metal.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Protocellular Heme and Iron-Sulfur Clusters.Accounts of chemical research · 2024Review
- Iron‑sulfur clusters in viral proteins: Exploring their elusive nature, roles and new avenues for targeting infections.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Molecular cell research · 2024Review
- Unveiling the role of inorganic nanoparticles in Earth's biochemical evolution through electron transfer dynamics.iScience · 2024Review
- Ferroptosis regulation through Nrf2 and implications for neurodegenerative diseases.Archives of toxicology · 2024Review
- Opinion: The Key Steps in the Origin of Life to the Formation of the Eukaryotic Cell.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- An inorganic mineral-based protocell with prebiotic radiation fitness.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Ring Opening of Glycerol Cyclic Phosphates Leads to a Diverse Array of Potentially Prebiotic Phospholipids.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
- Optimization and Enhancement of the Peroxidase-like Activity of Hemin in Aqueous Solutions of Sodium Dodecylsulfate.ACS omega · 2023Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Iron-sulfur clusters are ancient cofactors that play a fundamental role in metabolism and may have impacted the prebiotic chemistry that led to life. However, it is unclear whether iron-sulfur clusters could have been synthesized on prebiotic Earth. Dissolved iron on early Earth was predominantly in the reduced ferrous state, but ferrous ions alone cannot form polynuclear iron-sulfur clusters. Similarly, free sulfide may not have been readily available. Here we show that UV light drives the synthesis of [2Fe-2S] and [4Fe-4S] clusters through the photooxidation of ferrous ions and the photolysis of organic thiols. Iron-sulfur clusters coordinate to and are stabilized by a wide range of cysteine-containing peptides and the assembly of iron-sulfur cluster-peptide complexes can take place within model protocells in a process that parallels extant pathways. Our experiments suggest that iron-sulfur clusters may have formed easily on early Earth, facilitating the emergence of an iron-sulfur-cluster-dependent metabolism.
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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.