Origin of ATP phosphate esters and sulfur thio-esters in early Life

所有的生命都需要能量。生物学中能量收集的一个主要途径是底物水平的磷酸化，这是由酶甘油醛3-磷酸脱氢酶进行的。这种酶是如何进化的，以及它最初的化学反应性是什么，仍然不得而知。在这一年里，我们成功地调查了一种嗜热细菌的甘油醛3-磷酸脱氢酶的化学反应性。令我们惊讶的是，我们发现了一种新的酶促反应，据我们所知，这是以前从未报道过的。此外，我们发现，在我们的实验室中进行独特操作的分析条件可以以令人惊讶的方式改变酶活性的反应动力学，但仍未完全理解。我们正在将这些结果起草成一份手稿，与科学界分享。我们的成果影响深远。首先，它们对广泛分布于整个生命之树的糖酵解中心能量收集酶提供了新的见解。其次，我们的结果提供了新的见解，可以用来讨论这种迷人的酶的可能的祖先活性，它完成底物磷酸化。

All life requires energy. One major pathway of energy harvesting in biology is substrate level phosphorylation, which is carried out by the enzyme glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase. How this enzyme evolved, and what its original chemical reactivity was remains unknown.In this year we successfully surveyed the chemical reactivity of the enzyme glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase from a thermophilic bacterium. To our surprise, we have identified a new enzymatic reaction which to our knowledge has not been reported before. In addition we find that the conditions of the assay which are being uniquely manipulated within our laboratory can change the reaction kinetics of the enzyme activity in surprising and still not completely understood ways. We are proceeding to draft these results into a manuscript to share with the scientific community.Our results are far reaching. First, they give new insights into the central energy harvesting enzyme of glycolysis which is widely distributed across the tree of life. Second, our results provide new insights which can be used to discuss the possible ancestral activity of this fascinating enzyme which accomplishes substrate phosphorylation.