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A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life

The central role that phosphates play in biological systems, suggests they also played an important role in the emergence of life on Earth. In recent years, numerous important advances have been made towards understanding the influence that phosphates may have had on prebiotic chemistry, and here, w...

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Autores principales: Fernández-García, Christian, Coggins, Adam J., Powner, Matthew W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5617956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28703763
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life7030031
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author Fernández-García, Christian
Coggins, Adam J.
Powner, Matthew W.
author_facet Fernández-García, Christian
Coggins, Adam J.
Powner, Matthew W.
author_sort Fernández-García, Christian
collection PubMed
description The central role that phosphates play in biological systems, suggests they also played an important role in the emergence of life on Earth. In recent years, numerous important advances have been made towards understanding the influence that phosphates may have had on prebiotic chemistry, and here, we highlight two important aspects of prebiotic phosphate chemistry. Firstly, we discuss prebiotic phosphorylation reactions; we specifically contrast aqueous electrophilic phosphorylation, and aqueous nucleophilic phosphorylation strategies, with dry-state phosphorylations that are mediated by dissociative phosphoryl-transfer. Secondly, we discuss the non-structural roles that phosphates can play in prebiotic chemistry. Here, we focus on the mechanisms by which phosphate has guided prebiotic reactivity through catalysis or buffering effects, to facilitating selective transformations in neutral water. Several prebiotic routes towards the synthesis of nucleotides, amino acids, and core metabolites, that have been facilitated or controlled by phosphate acting as a general acid–base catalyst, pH buffer, or a chemical buffer, are outlined. These facile and subtle mechanisms for incorporation and exploitation of phosphates to orchestrate selective, robust prebiotic chemistry, coupled with the central and universally conserved roles of phosphates in biochemistry, provide an increasingly clear message that understanding phosphate chemistry will be a key element in elucidating the origins of life on Earth.
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spelling pubmed-56179562017-09-29 A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life Fernández-García, Christian Coggins, Adam J. Powner, Matthew W. Life (Basel) Review The central role that phosphates play in biological systems, suggests they also played an important role in the emergence of life on Earth. In recent years, numerous important advances have been made towards understanding the influence that phosphates may have had on prebiotic chemistry, and here, we highlight two important aspects of prebiotic phosphate chemistry. Firstly, we discuss prebiotic phosphorylation reactions; we specifically contrast aqueous electrophilic phosphorylation, and aqueous nucleophilic phosphorylation strategies, with dry-state phosphorylations that are mediated by dissociative phosphoryl-transfer. Secondly, we discuss the non-structural roles that phosphates can play in prebiotic chemistry. Here, we focus on the mechanisms by which phosphate has guided prebiotic reactivity through catalysis or buffering effects, to facilitating selective transformations in neutral water. Several prebiotic routes towards the synthesis of nucleotides, amino acids, and core metabolites, that have been facilitated or controlled by phosphate acting as a general acid–base catalyst, pH buffer, or a chemical buffer, are outlined. These facile and subtle mechanisms for incorporation and exploitation of phosphates to orchestrate selective, robust prebiotic chemistry, coupled with the central and universally conserved roles of phosphates in biochemistry, provide an increasingly clear message that understanding phosphate chemistry will be a key element in elucidating the origins of life on Earth. MDPI 2017-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5617956/ /pubmed/28703763 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life7030031 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Fernández-García, Christian
Coggins, Adam J.
Powner, Matthew W.
A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life
title A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life
title_full A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life
title_fullStr A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life
title_full_unstemmed A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life
title_short A Chemist’s Perspective on the Role of Phosphorus at the Origins of Life
title_sort chemist’s perspective on the role of phosphorus at the origins of life
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5617956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28703763
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life7030031
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