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Prebiotic Chemistry and Chemical Evolution of Nucleic Acids pp 227–243Cite as

Folding and Catalysis Near Life’s Origin: Support for Fe2+ as a Dominant Divalent Cation

Part of the Nucleic Acids and Molecular Biology book series (NUCLEIC,volume 35)

Abstract

There is broad consensus that during and immediately following the origin of life, RNA was the single biopolymer or was among a small group of cooperating biopolymers. During the origin of life, the Archean Earth was anoxic; Fe2+ was abundant and relatively benign. We hypothesize that RNA used Fe2+ as a cofactor instead of, or along with, Mg2+ during the inception and early phases of biology, until the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). In this model, RNA participated in a metal substitution during the GOE, whereby Mg2+ replaced Fe2+ as the dominant RNA cofactor. A GOE-induced Fe2+ to Mg2+ substitution predicts that under ‘early Earth’ (anoxic) conditions, Fe2+ can participate in a variety of functions, including mediation of RNA folding and catalysis by ribozymes and proteins. Understanding the influence of Fe2+ on nucleic acid structure and function could provide an important link between the geological record and the ancestral biological world. This review focuses on experimental work investigating the interactions and functions of RNA and nucleic acid processing proteins with Fe2+ under anoxic, early Earth conditions.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by National Aeronautics and Space Administration grants NNX16AJ28G and NNX16AJ29G.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, NSF-NASA Center for Chemical Evolution, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    C. Denise Okafor, Jessica C. Bowman, Nicholas V. Hud & Loren Dean Williams

  2. School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jennifer B. Glass

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  1. C. Denise Okafor
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  2. Jessica C. Bowman
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  4. Jennifer B. Glass
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Correspondence to Loren Dean Williams .

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  1. NSF-NASA Center for Chemical Evolution, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA; Unidad de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Dept. Biologia de Sistemas, Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain

    Dr. César Menor-Salván

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Okafor, C.D., Bowman, J.C., Hud, N.V., Glass, J.B., Williams, L.D. (2018). Folding and Catalysis Near Life’s Origin: Support for Fe2+ as a Dominant Divalent Cation. In: Menor-Salván , C. (eds) Prebiotic Chemistry and Chemical Evolution of Nucleic Acids. Nucleic Acids and Molecular Biology, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93584-3_8

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