ArticlePLoS biology2022
A prebiotic basis for ATP as the universal energy currency.
Article in PLoS biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- ATP-fueled STING activation of manganese coordinated nanoagonist to boost antitumor immunity.Bioactive materials · 2026Article
- Molecular basis of host ATP level modulation by actin-dependent secreted bacterial ATPase and its metaeffector.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A Nonenzymatic Analogue of the Biosynthesis of Pyridoxal Vitamers.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- Shadow of a Shadow: Ferrocyanide and Nitroprusside as Sunscreens for Photosensitive Prebiotic Molecules.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Stereoselective Phosphorylation of d-Ribose as a Driver of Life's Homochirality.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The RNA-First Fallacy: Conflating Evolutionary Ancestry with Prebiotic Primacy.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The Queen and the Dark Twin: Heme, Protoporphyrin IX, and State Transitions in Liver Metabolism.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Adenosine Signaling as a Central Integrative Network in Cellular Stress Responses and a Therapeutically Actionable Target in Human Disease.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Selection for growth drives the emergence of genetic heredity in protocells.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Potential metabolic viability on asteroid chemistry.Communications chemistry · 2026Article
- Energy-Rich Molecules and Group Transfer Potentials in Energetic Coupling Reactions.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Review
- Coenzyme-protein interactions since early life.eLife · 2025Article
- AI-Enhanced Transcriptomic Discovery of Druggable Targets and Repurposed Therapies for Huntington's Disease.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Modulation of host ATP levels by secreted bacterial effectors.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Redefining the Limits of Functional Continuity in the Early Evolution of P-Loop NTPases.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Heat flows solubilize apatite to boost phosphate availability for prebiotic chemistry.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Influence of the Microbial Metabolite Acetyl Phosphate on Mitochondrial Functions Under Conditions of Exogenous Acetylation and Alkalization.Metabolites · 2024Article
- In the Beginning: Let Hydration Be Coded in Proteins for Manifestation and Modulation by Salts and Adenosine Triphosphate.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
ATP is universally conserved as the principal energy currency in cells, driving metabolism through phosphorylation and condensation reactions. Such deep conservation suggests that ATP arose at an early stage of biochemical evolution. Yet purine synthesis requires 6 phosphorylation steps linked to ATP hydrolysis. This autocatalytic requirement for ATP to synthesize ATP implies the need for an earlier prebiotic ATP equivalent, which could drive protometabolism before purine synthesis. Why this early phosphorylating agent was replaced, and specifically with ATP rather than other nucleoside triphosphates, remains a mystery. Here, we show that the deep conservation of ATP might reflect its prebiotic chemistry in relation to another universally conserved intermediate, acetyl phosphate (AcP), which bridges between thioester and phosphate metabolism by linking acetyl CoA to the substrate-level phosphorylation of ADP. We confirm earlier results showing that AcP can phosphorylate ADP to ATP at nearly 20% yield in water in the presence of Fe3+ ions. We then show that Fe3+ and AcP are surprisingly favoured. A wide range of prebiotically relevant ions and minerals failed to catalyse ADP phosphorylation. From a panel of prebiotic phosphorylating agents, only AcP, and to a lesser extent carbamoyl phosphate, showed any significant phosphorylating potential. Critically, AcP did not phosphorylate any other nucleoside diphosphate. We use these data, reaction kinetics, and molecular dynamic simulations to infer a possible mechanism. Our findings might suggest that the reason ATP is universally conserved across life is that its formation is chemically favoured in aqueous solution under mild prebiotic conditions.
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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.