Abstract
In our universe, life may exist on many planets, more or less similar to Tellus, the Earth. As the only life we know is life on Earth, our ideas about life in the universe are naturally based on what we know about this life and its various aspects, such as its origin from an energetic point of view.
Life has been characterized in terms of a specific flow of energy, matter and information. The transition from general molecular information to specific genetic information, resulting in an energy requiring process of replication of a kind allowing for mutations and natural selection, may be considered as a most essential anastrophe (H. Baltscheffsky, 1997) in the chains of events resulting in the origin and subsequent evolution of life. Before, during and after its origin, particularly significant energy sources may have been light energy and chemical energy. The metabolism of living cells is known to be based on their capacity for capture and conversion of energy, with energy coupling allowing the energy requiring reactions to be driven by those reactions, which under prevailing conditions can supply the necessary energy.
Among the many still open questions about the energetics of the origin of life are: 1) was the source of energy for the origin of life photic or chemical or both, and were there other significant energy sources, such as electrical discharges etc.?; 2) were the first energy-rich chemical compounds of late chemical or early biological evolution inorganic or organic or of both kinds?; and 3) were there several systems for energy conversion at the prenucleotide level, such as, for example, those which have been suggested to be based on inorganic pyrophosphate (“PPi world”), organic thioesters (“thioester world”) and iron-sulphur compounds (“iron-sulphur world”), and were there close chemical links between such “worlds”?
Some major anastrophic transitions in the energetics of the origin and early evolution of life will be presented. Our search for very early or “primitive” enzymes will be discussed, with examples taken from recent results with both soluble and membrane-bound inorganic pyrophosphatases (PPases).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Arnon, D.I., Allen, M.B., and Whatley, F.R. (1954) Photosynthesis by isolated chloroplasts, Nature 174, 394–396.
Baltscheffsky, H. (1993) Chemical origin and early evolution of biological energy conversion, in C. Ponnamperuma and J. Chela-Flores (eds.), Chemical Evolution: Origin of Life, A. Deepak, Hampton, pp. 13–23.
Baltscheffsky, H. (1996) Energy conversion leading to the origin of life: did inorganic pyrophosphate precede adenosine triphosphate?, in H. Baltscheffsky (ed.), Origin and Evolution of Biological Energy Conversion, VCH Publishers, New York, pp. 1–9.
Baltscheffsky, H. (1997) Major “anastrophes” in the origin and early evolution of biological energy conversion, J. Theor. Biol. 187, 495–501.
Baltscheffsky, H. and Baltscheffsky, M. (1995) Energy, matter and self-organization in the early molecular evolution of bioenergetic systems, in J. Chela-Flores, M. Chadha, A. Negron-Mendoza, and T. Oshima, (eds.), Chemical Evolution: Self-Organization of the Macromolecules of Life, A. Deepak, Hampton, pp. 83–89.
Baltscheffsky, H, Baltscheffsky, M., Nadanaciva, S., Persson, B., and Schultz, A. (1997) Possible origin and evolution of inorganic pyrophosphatases, Abstract, in R. Lahti (ed.), Proc. 1st Int. Meeting on Inorganic Pyrophosphatases, Turku, pp. 1–3, (ISBN 951-29-0990-1).
Baltscheffsky, H. Schultz, A., and Persson, B. (1998) MJ0882_hyp: An archaeal “early” pyrophosphatase related to methyltransferases and protoporphyrinogen oxidases?, (submitted).
Baltscheffsky, H., von Stedingk, L.-V., Heldt, H.W., and Klingenberg, M. (1966) Inorganic pyrophosphate: formation in bacterialphotophosphorylation, Science 153, 1120–1122.
Baltscheffsky, M., Schultz, A., and Nadanaciva, S. (1997) The inorganic pyrophosphate synthase from Rhodospirillum rubrum and its gene, Abstract, in R. Lahti, (ed.), Proc. 1st Int. Meeting on Inorganic Pyrophosphatases, Turku, pp. 16–18, (ISBN 951-29-0990-1).
Baltscheffsky, M., Nadanaciva, S., and Schultz, A. (1998) A pyrophosphate synthase gene: Molecular cloning and sequencing of the cDNA encoding the PPi synthase from Rhodospirillum rubrum, (submitted).
Bork, P. and Koonin, E.V. (1994) A P-loop-like motif in a widespread ATP pyrophosphatase domain: Implications for the evolution of sequence motifs and enzyme activity, Proteins 20, 347–355.
Bult, C.J. et al. (1996) Complete genome sequence of the methanogenie archaeon, Methanococcus jannaschii, Science 273, 1058–1072.
de Duve, C. (1991) Blueprint for a Cell. The Nature and Origin of Life, Patterson, New York.
Eigen, M. and Schuster, P. (1978) The hypercycle, Naturwiss. 65, 341–369.
Heikinheimo, P. et al. (1996) A site-directed mutagenesis study of Saccharomyces cerevisiae pyrophosphatase. Functional conservation of the active site of soluble inorganic pyrophosphatases, Eur. J. Biochem. 239, 138–143.
Lipmann, F. (1965) Projecting backward from the present stage of evolution of biosynthesis, in Fox, S.W. (ed.) The Origins of Prebiological Systems and their Molecular Matrices, Academic Press, New York, pp. 212–226.
Lundin, M., Baltscheffsky, H., and Ronne, H. (1991) Yeast PPA2 gene encodes a mitochondrial inorganic pyrophosphatase that is essential for mitochondrial function, J. Biol. Chem. 266, 12168–12172.
Michels, P.A.M., Chevalier, N., Opperdoes, F.R., Rider, M.H., and Rigden, D.J. (1998) The glycosomal ATP-dependent phosphofructokinase of Trypanosoma brucei must have evolved from an ancestral pyrophosphate-dependent enzyme, Eur. J. Biochem. (in press).
Nitschke, W., Mattioli, T., and Rutherford, A.W. (1996) The FeS-type photosystems and the evolution of photosynthetic reaction centers, in H. Baltscheffsky (ed.), Origin and Evolution of Biological Energy Conversion, VCH Publishers, New York, pp. 177–203.
Ponnamperuma, C. (1971) Primordial organic chemistry and the origin of life, Quart. Revs. Biophys. 4, 77–106.
Rea, P.A. et al. (1992) Vacuolar H+-translocating pyrophosphatases: a new category of ion translocase, TIBS 17, 348–353.
Rutherford, A.W. and Nitschke, W. (1996) Photosystem II and the quinone-iron-containing reaction centers: comparisons and evolutionary perspectives, in H. Baltscheffsky (ed.), Origin and Evolution of Biological Energy Conversion, VCH Publishers, New York, pp. 143–175.
Saraste, M., Sibbald, P.R., and Wittinghofer, A. (1990) The P-loop — a common motif in ATP-and GTP-binding proteins., TIBS 15, 430–434.
Walker, J.E., Saraste, M., Runswick, M.J., and Gay, N.J. (1982) Distantly related sequences in the α-and β-subunits of ATP synthase, myosin, kinases and other ATP-requiring enzymes and a common nucleotide binding fold, EMBO J. 1, 945–951.
Wächtershäuser, G. (1992) Groundworks for an evolutionary biochemistry: the iron-sulphur world, Prog. Biophys. molec. Biol. 58, 85–201.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this paper
Cite this paper
Baltscheffsky, H., Schultz, A., Baltscheffsky, M. (1998). Energy for the Origin of Life. In: Chela-Flores, J., Raulin, F. (eds) Exobiology: Matter, Energy, and Information in the Origin and Evolution of Life in the Universe. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5056-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5056-9_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6124-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-5056-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive