Transketolase reaction under credible prebiotic conditions.

Abstract

A transketolase reaction was catalyzed by cyanide ion under prebiotic conditions instead of its modern catalyst, thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP). Cyanide ion converted fructose plus glyceraldehyde to erythrose plus xylulose, the same products as are formed in modern biochemistry (but without the phosphate groups on the sugars). Cyanide was actually a better catalyst than was TPP in simple solution, where there is a negligible concentration of the C-2 anion of TPP, but of course not with an enzyme in modern biology. The cyanide ion was probably not toxic on prebiotic earth, but only when the oxygen atmosphere developed and iron porphyrin species were needed, which cyanide poisons. Thus, catalyses by TPP that are so important in modern biochemistry in the Calvin cycle for photosynthesis and the gluconic acid pathway for glucose oxidation, among other processes, were probably initially performed instead by cyanide ion until its toxicity with metalloproteins became a problem and primitive enzymes were present to work with TPP, or most likely its primitive precursors.