Sweet Origins of Life: Peering into the Past with Today’s Biochemistry

Introduction

Approximately four billion years ago, chemical and geological processes on the ancient Earth caused a continuous increase in the complexity of organic molecules, ultimately leading to RNA, DNA, proteins, polysaccharides, membrane-forming amphipaths, metabolism, and the roots of biology. But how did it all begin? How did chemistry become biology?

The Starting Point

There are many indications of the starting point, i.e., the huge set of small molecules that existed on early Earth, as well as the end point of chemical evolution - which is the beginning of biology and the first living organisms. In order to unravel the gap of what happened in between, it is crucial to analyze plausible routes to the origin of life.

Focus of Previous Research

While much effort to date in the context of the formation of primordial polymers has focused on the generation of nucleic acids, and to a lesser extent the formation of peptides, the role of sugars in the chemical origins of life has never been investigated - outside the roles of sugars as structural elements of nucleic acids and in metabolism.

Importance of Sugars

Sugars are ubiquitous biomolecules, providing an energy source, taking part in biosynthesis, providing structural support, and even acting as catalysts. Sugars are often found in conjugation with other biomolecules (e.g., glycolipids).

Hypothesis

I hypothesize that the tightly intertwined biological dependencies of sugars and other biopolymers, and their mutualistic relationships, reflect a long co-evolutionary process.

Main Goal

The main goal of this proposal is to bridge the gap from early prebiotic chemistry to today’s complex biochemistry by studying mutually catalytic networks involving sugars.

Methodology

Following our preliminary findings which successfully demonstrated the formation of oligomers composed of sugars and amino acids, my team will:

1. Generate and characterize a multitude of heterogeneous glycan-containing conjugates.
2. Study their emergent assembly and function.

Expected Outcomes

This study will furnish a deep understanding of how and why life’s biochemistry emerged.