Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39493872›Full record

ArticleiScience2024

Rapid hydrolysis rates of thio- and phosphate esters constrain the origin of metabolism to cool, acidic to neutral environments.

Sebastian A Sanden, Christopher J Butch, Stuart Bartlett, Nathaniel Virgo, Yasuhito Sekine, Shawn Erin McGlynn

Erratum issuedAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in iScience, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Review
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Sebastian A SandenEarth Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 I7E Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan.
Christopher J ButchEarth Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 I7E Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan.
Stuart BartlettEarth Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 I7E Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan.
Nathaniel VirgoEarth Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 I7E Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan.
Yasuhito SekineEarth Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 I7E Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan.
Shawn Erin McGlynnEarth Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 I7E Ookayama, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Universal to all life is a reliance on energy carriers such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which connect energy-releasing reactions to energy-consuming processes. While ATP is ubiquitously used today, simpler molecules such as thioesters and polyphosphates are hypothesized to be primordial energy carriers. Investigating environmental constraints on the non-enzymatic emergence of metabolism, we find that hydrolysis rates-not hydrolysis energies-differentiate phosphate esters and thioesters. At temperatures consistent with thermophilic microbes, thioesters are favored at acidic pH and phosphate esters at basic pH. Thioacids have a high stability across pH 5-10. The planetary availability of sulfur and phosphate is coincident with these calculations, with phosphate being abundant in alkaline and sulfur in acidic environments. Since both sulfur esters and phosphate esters are uniquely required in metabolism, our results point to a non-thermophilic origin of early metabolism at cool, acidic to neutral environments.

Indexed as

ChemistryEarth sciencesThermodynamics

Identifiers

PMID39493872
PMCPMC11530844

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

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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.