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July 2, 2019 01:00 pm

Researchers Identify the Origins of Metabolism

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A Rutgers-led study sheds light on one of the most enduring mysteries of science: How did metabolism -- the process by which life powers itself by converting energy from food into movement and growth -- begin? To answer that question, the researchers reverse-engineered a primordial protein and inserted it into a living bacterium, where it successfully powered the cell's metabolism, growth and reproduction, according to the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers looked at a class of proteins called ferredoxins, which support metabolism in bacteria, plants and animals by moving electricity through cells. These proteins have different, complex forms in today's living things, but researchers speculate they all arose from a much simpler protein that was present in the ancestor of all life. Similar to the ways biologists compare modern birds and reptiles to draw conclusions about their shared ancestor, the researchers compared ferredoxin molecules that are present in living things and, using computer models, designed ancestral forms that may have existed at an earlier stage in the evolution of life. That research led to their creation of a basic version of the protein -- a simple ferredoxin that is able to conduct electricity within a cell and that, over eons of evolution, could have given rise to the many types that exist today. Then, to prove their model of the ancient protein could actually support life, they inserted it into a living cell. They took the genome of E. coli bacteria, removed the gene it uses to create ferredoxin in nature, and spliced in a gene for their reverse-engineered protein. The modified E. coli colony survived and grew although more slowly than normal.

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