Abstract
Energised by the protonmotive force and with the intervention of inorganic catalysts, at base Life reacts hydrogen from a variety of sources with atmospheric carbon dioxide. It seems inescapable that life emerged to fulfil the same role (i.e., to hydrogenate CO2) on the early Earth, thus outcompeting the slow geochemical reduction to methane. Life would have done so where hydrothermal hydrogen interfaced a carbonic ocean through inorganic precipitate membranes. Thus we argue that the first carbon-fixing reaction was the molybdenum-dependent, proton-translocating formate hydrogenlyase system described by Andrews et al. (Microbiology 143:3633–3647, 1997), but driven in reverse. Alkaline on the inside and acidic and carbonic on the outside - a submarine chambered hydrothermal mound built above an alkaline hydrothermal spring of long duration - offered just the conditions for such a reverse reaction imposed by the ambient protonmotive force. Assisted by the same inorganic catalysts and potential energy stores that were to evolve into the active centres of enzymes supplied variously from ocean or hydrothermal system, the formate reaction enabled the rest of the acetyl coenzyme-A pathway to be followed exergonically, first to acetate, then separately to methane. Thus the two prokaryotic domains both emerged within the hydrothermal mound—the acetogens were the forerunners of the Bacteria and the methanogens were the forerunners of the Archaea.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Anne-Lise Ducluzeau, Allan Hall, Isik Kanik, Bill Martin, Randall Mielke, Shawn McGlynn, Carola Schulzke and Anne Volbeda for help and support. WN was financially supported by the French Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR-06-BLAN-0384). MJR’s research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology and supported by NASA’s Astrobiology Institute (Icy Worlds).
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Nitschke, W., Russell, M.J. Hydrothermal Focusing of Chemical and Chemiosmotic Energy, Supported by Delivery of Catalytic Fe, Ni, Mo/W, Co, S and Se, Forced Life to Emerge. J Mol Evol 69, 481–496 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-009-9289-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-009-9289-3