GTP before ATP: The energy currency at the origin of genes

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Mrnjavac, Natalia, Martin, William F.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Mrnjavac, Natalia
Martin, William F.
author_facet Mrnjavac, Natalia
Martin, William F.
contents Life is an exergonic chemical reaction. Many individual reactions in metabolism entail slightly endergonic steps that are coupled to free energy release, typically as ATP hydrolysis, in order to go forward. ATP is almost always supplied by the rotor-stator ATP synthase, which harnesses chemiosmotic ion gradients. Because the ATP synthase is a protein, it arose after the ribosome did. What was the energy currency of metabolism before the origin of the ATP synthase and how (and why) did ATP come to be the universal energy currency? About 27% of a cell's energy budget is consumed as GTP during translation. The universality of GTP-dependence in ribosome function indicates that GTP was the ancestral energy currency of protein synthesis. The use of GTP in translation and ATP in small molecule synthesis are conserved across all lineages, representing energetic compartments that arose in the last universal common ancestor, LUCA. And what came before GTP? Recent findings indicate that the energy supporting the origin of LUCA's metabolism stemmed from H2-dependent CO2 reduction along routes that strongly resemble the reactions and transition metal catalysts of the acetyl-CoA pathway.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_08744
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GTP before ATP: The energy currency at the origin of genes
Mrnjavac, Natalia
Martin, William F.
Biological Physics
Biomolecules
Populations and Evolution
Life is an exergonic chemical reaction. Many individual reactions in metabolism entail slightly endergonic steps that are coupled to free energy release, typically as ATP hydrolysis, in order to go forward. ATP is almost always supplied by the rotor-stator ATP synthase, which harnesses chemiosmotic ion gradients. Because the ATP synthase is a protein, it arose after the ribosome did. What was the energy currency of metabolism before the origin of the ATP synthase and how (and why) did ATP come to be the universal energy currency? About 27% of a cell's energy budget is consumed as GTP during translation. The universality of GTP-dependence in ribosome function indicates that GTP was the ancestral energy currency of protein synthesis. The use of GTP in translation and ATP in small molecule synthesis are conserved across all lineages, representing energetic compartments that arose in the last universal common ancestor, LUCA. And what came before GTP? Recent findings indicate that the energy supporting the origin of LUCA's metabolism stemmed from H2-dependent CO2 reduction along routes that strongly resemble the reactions and transition metal catalysts of the acetyl-CoA pathway.
title GTP before ATP: The energy currency at the origin of genes
topic Biological Physics
Biomolecules
Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.08744