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Vela-Gallego S, Lewandowski B, Möhler J, Puente A, Gil-Cantero D, Wennemers H, de la Escosura A. Modifying the Catalytic Activity of Lipopeptide Assemblies with Nucleobases. Chemistry 2024; 30:e202303395. [PMID: 37877614 DOI: 10.1002/chem.202303395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2023] [Revised: 10/18/2023] [Accepted: 10/25/2023] [Indexed: 10/26/2023]
Abstract
Biohybrid catalysts that operate in aqueous media are intriguing for systems chemistry. In this paper, we investigate whether control over the self-assembly of biohybrid catalysts can tune their properties. As a model, we use the catalytic activity of functional hybrid molecules consisting of a catalytic H-dPro-Pro-Glu tripeptide, derivatized with fatty acid and nucleobase moieties. This combination of simple biological components merged the catalytic properties of the peptide with the self-assembly of the lipid, and the structural ordering of the nucleobases. The biomolecule hybrids self-assemble in aqueous media into fibrillar assemblies and catalyze the reaction between butanal and nitrostyrene. The interactions between the nucleobases enhanced the order of the supramolecular structures and affected their catalytic activity and stereoselectivity. The results point to the significant control and ordering that nucleobases can provide in the self-assembly of biologically inspired supramolecular catalysts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sonia Vela-Gallego
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
| | - Bartosz Lewandowski
- Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, D-CHAB, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 3, 8093, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Jasper Möhler
- Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, D-CHAB, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 3, 8093, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Alonso Puente
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
| | - David Gil-Cantero
- Department of Structure of Macromolecules, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología / CSIC, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
| | - Helma Wennemers
- Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, D-CHAB, ETH Zürich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 3, 8093, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Andrés de la Escosura
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
- Institute for Advanced Research in Chemistry (IAdChem), Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
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2
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Edri R, Fisher S, Menor-Salvan C, Williams LD, Frenkel-Pinter M. Assembly-driven protection from hydrolysis as key selective force during chemical evolution. FEBS Lett 2023; 597:2879-2896. [PMID: 37884438 DOI: 10.1002/1873-3468.14766] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2023] [Revised: 09/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/21/2023] [Indexed: 10/28/2023]
Abstract
The origins of biopolymers pose fascinating questions in prebiotic chemistry. The marvelous assembly proficiencies of biopolymers suggest they are winners of a competitive evolutionary process. Sophisticated molecular assembly is ubiquitous in life where it is often emergent upon polymerization. We focus on the influence of molecular assembly on hydrolysis rates in aqueous media and suggest that assembly was crucial for biopolymer selection. In this model, incremental enrichment of some molecular species during chemical evolution was partially driven by the interplay of kinetics of synthesis and hydrolysis. We document a general attenuation of hydrolysis by assembly (i.e., recalcitrance) for all universal biopolymers and highlight the likely role of assembly in the survival of the 'fittest' molecules during chemical evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rotem Edri
- Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Sarah Fisher
- Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Cesar Menor-Salvan
- Department of Biología de Sistemas, Universidad de Alcalá, Madrid, Spain
| | - Loren Dean Williams
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
- Center for the Origins of Life, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
| | - Moran Frenkel-Pinter
- Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- Center for the Origins of Life, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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3
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Boigenzahn H, Gagrani P, Yin J. Enhancement of Prebiotic Peptide Formation in Cyclic Environments. ORIGINS LIFE EVOL B 2023; 53:157-173. [PMID: 37897620 DOI: 10.1007/s11084-023-09641-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2023] [Accepted: 09/01/2023] [Indexed: 10/30/2023]
Abstract
The dynamic behaviors of prebiotic reaction networks may be critically important to understanding how larger biopolymers could emerge, despite being unfavorable to form in water. We focus on understanding the dynamics of simple systems, prior to the emergence of replication mechanisms, and what role they may have played in biopolymer formation. We specifically consider the dynamics in cyclic environments using both model and experimental data. Cyclic environmental conditions prevent a system from reaching thermodynamic equilibrium, improving the chance of observing interesting kinetic behaviors. We used an approximate kinetic model to simulate the dynamics of trimetaphosphate (TP)-activated peptide formation from glycine in cyclic wet-dry conditions. The model predicts that environmental cycling allows trimer and tetramer peptides to sustain concentrations above the predicted fixed points of the model due to overshoot, a dynamic phenomenon. Our experiments demonstrate that oscillatory environments can shift product distributions in favor of longer peptides. However, experimental validation of certain behaviors in the kinetic model is challenging, considering that open systems with cyclic environmental conditions break many of the common assumptions in classical chemical kinetics. Overall, our results suggest that the dynamics of simple peptide reaction networks in cyclic environments may have been important for the formation of longer polymers on the early Earth. Similar phenomena may have also contributed to the emergence of reaction networks with product distributions determined not by thermodynamics, but rather by kinetics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hayley Boigenzahn
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, WI 53715, USA
| | - Praful Gagrani
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, WI 53715, USA
| | - John Yin
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, WI 53715, USA.
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4
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Nogal N, Sanz-Sánchez M, Vela-Gallego S, Ruiz-Mirazo K, de la Escosura A. The protometabolic nature of prebiotic chemistry. Chem Soc Rev 2023; 52:7359-7388. [PMID: 37855729 PMCID: PMC10614573 DOI: 10.1039/d3cs00594a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
Abstract
The field of prebiotic chemistry has been dedicated over decades to finding abiotic routes towards the molecular components of life. There is nowadays a handful of prebiotically plausible scenarios that enable the laboratory synthesis of most amino acids, fatty acids, simple sugars, nucleotides and core metabolites of extant living organisms. The major bottleneck then seems to be the self-organization of those building blocks into systems that can self-sustain. The purpose of this tutorial review is having a close look, guided by experimental research, into the main synthetic pathways of prebiotic chemistry, suggesting how they could be wired through common intermediates and catalytic cycles, as well as how recursively changing conditions could help them engage in self-organized and dissipative networks/assemblies (i.e., systems that consume chemical or physical energy from their environment to maintain their internal organization in a dynamic steady state out of equilibrium). In the article we also pay attention to the implications of this view for the emergence of homochirality. The revealed connectivity between those prebiotic routes should constitute the basis for a robust research program towards the bottom-up implementation of protometabolic systems, taken as a central part of the origins-of-life problem. In addition, this approach should foster further exploration of control mechanisms to tame the combinatorial explosion that typically occurs in mixtures of various reactive precursors, thus regulating the functional integration of their respective chemistries into self-sustaining protocellular assemblies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Noemí Nogal
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Marcos Sanz-Sánchez
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Sonia Vela-Gallego
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain.
| | - Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo
- Biofisika Institute (CSIC, UPV/EHU), University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain
- Department of Philosophy, University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain
| | - Andrés de la Escosura
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Campus Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain.
- Institute for Advanced Research in Chemistry (IAdChem), Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049, Madrid, Spain
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Shi Y, Tian H, Xia Y, Sun Y, Zhou Z, Ren Y, Shi T, Liu Z, Ma G. Deciphering the reaction mechanism and the reactivity of the TCEP species towards reduction of hexachloroiridate(IV). J Mol Liq 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2022.120894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
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Paikar A, Novichkov AI, Hanopolskyi AI, Smaliak VA, Sui X, Kampf N, Skorb EV, Semenov SN. Spatiotemporal Regulation of Hydrogel Actuators by Autocatalytic Reaction Networks. ADVANCED MATERIALS (DEERFIELD BEACH, FLA.) 2022; 34:e2106816. [PMID: 34910837 DOI: 10.1002/adma.202106816] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2021] [Revised: 11/26/2021] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Regulating hydrogel actuators with chemical reaction networks is instrumental for constructing life-inspired smart materials. Herein, hydrogel actuators are engineered that are regulated by the autocatalytic front of thiols. The actuators consist of two layers. The first layer, which is regular polyacrylamide hydrogel, is in a strained conformation. The second layer, which is polyacrylamide hydrogel with disulfide crosslinks, maintains strain in the first layer. When thiols released by the autocatalytic front reduce disulfide crosslinks, the hydrogel actuates by releasing the mechanical strain in the first layer. The autocatalytic front is sustained by the reaction network, which uses thiouronium salts, disulfides of β-aminothiols, and maleimide as starting components. The gradual actuation by the autocatalytic front enables movements such as gradual unrolling, screwing, and sequential closing of "fingers." This actuation also allows the transmission of chemical signals in a relay fashion and the conversion of a chemical signal to an electrical signal. Locations and times of spontaneous initiation of autocatalytic fronts can be preprogrammed in the spatial distribution of the reactants in the hydrogel. To approach the functionality of living matter, the actuators triggered by an autocatalytic front can be integrated into smart materials regulated by chemical circuits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arpita Paikar
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
| | - Alexander I Novichkov
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
| | - Anton I Hanopolskyi
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
| | - Viktoryia A Smaliak
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
| | - Xiaomeng Sui
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
- Department of Chemical Research Support, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
| | - Nir Kampf
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
| | - Ekaterina V Skorb
- Infochemistry Scientific Center, ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, 191002, Russia
| | - Sergey N Semenov
- Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 7610001, Israel
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Vela-Gallego S, Pardo-Botero Z, Moya C, de la Escosura A. Collective Adaptability in a Replication Network of Minimal Nucleobase Sequences. Chem Sci 2022; 13:10715-10724. [PMID: 36320689 PMCID: PMC9491195 DOI: 10.1039/d2sc02419e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2022] [Accepted: 08/05/2022] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
A major challenge for understanding the origins of life is to explore how replication networks can engage in an evolutionary process. Herein, we shed light on this problem by implementing a network constituted by two different types of extremely simple biological components: the amino acid cysteine and the canonical nucleobases adenine and thymine, connected through amide bonds to the cysteine amino group and oxidation of its thiol into three possible disulfides. Supramolecular and kinetic analyses revealed that both self- and mutual interactions between such dinucleobase compounds drive their assembly and replication pathways. Those pathways involving sequence complementarity led to enhanced replication rates, suggesting a potential bias for selection. The interplay of synergistic dynamics and competition between replicators was then simulated, under conditions that are not easily accessible with experiments, in an open reactor parametrized and constrained with the unprecedentedly complete experimental kinetic data obtained for our replicative network. Interestingly, the simulations show bistability, as a selective amplification of different species depending on the initial mixture composition. Overall, this network configuration can favor a collective adaptability to changes in the availability of feedstock molecules, with disulfide exchange reactions serving as 'wires' that connect the different individual auto- and cross-catalytic pathways. A replication network of minimal nucleobase sequences is built from simple biological components. The network shows collective adaptability to changes in the environment, while disulfide exchange wires different auto- and cross-catalytic pathways.![]()
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Affiliation(s)
- Sonia Vela-Gallego
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Campus de Cantoblanco 28049 Madrid Spain
| | | | - Cristian Moya
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Campus de Cantoblanco 28049 Madrid Spain
| | - Andrés de la Escosura
- Department of Organic Chemistry, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Campus de Cantoblanco 28049 Madrid Spain
- Institute for Advanced Research in Chemistry (IAdChem) Cantoblanco 28049 Madrid Spain
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