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Updated: Jun 7, 2025

Expression, Purification, Crystallization, and Enzyme Assays of Fumarylacetoacetate Hydrolase Domain-Containing Proteins
Published on: June 20, 2019
Nonenzymatic Hydration of Phosphoenolpyruvate: General Conditions for Hydration in Protometabolism by Searching
Joris Zimmermann1, Atalay Bora Basar1, Joseph Moran1,2
1Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS), CNRS UMR 7006, Université de Strasbourg, 8 Allée Gaspard Monge, 67000, Strasbourg, France.
Abstract:
Numerous reactions within metabolic pathways have been reported to occur nonenzymatically, supporting the hypothesis that life arose upon a primitive nonenzymatic precursor to metabolism. However, most of those studies reproduce individual transformations or segments of pathways without providing a common set of conditions for classes of reactions that span multiple pathways. In this study, we search across pathways for common nonenzymatic conditions for a recurring chemical transformation in metabolism: alkene hydration. The mild conditions that we identify (Fe oxides such as green rust) apply to all hydration reactions of the rTCA cycle and gluconeogenesis, including the hydration of phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) to 2-phosphoglycerate (2PGA), which had not previously been reported under nonenzymatic conditions. Mechanistic insights were obtained by studying analogous substrates and through anoxic and radical trapping experiments. Searching for nonenzymatic conditions across pathways provides a complementary strategy to triangulate conditions conducive to the nonenzymatic emergence of a protometabolism.
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