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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1995 Dec 5;92(25):11904–11906. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.25.11904

Investigation of the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids and RNA bases from CO2 using FeS/H2S as a reducing agent.

A D Keefe 1, S L Miller 1, G McDonald 1, J Bada 1
PMCID: PMC40511  PMID: 8524872

Abstract

An autotrophic theory of the origin of metabolism and life has been proposed in which carbon dioxide is reduced by ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide by means of a reversed citric acid cycle, leading to the production of amino acids. Similar processes have been proposed for purine synthesis. Ferrous sulfide is a strong reducing agent in the presence of hydrogen sulfide and can produce hydrogen as well as reduce alkenes, alkynes, and thiols to saturated hydrocarbons and reduce ketones to thiols. However, the reduction of carbon dioxide has not been demonstrated. We show here that no amino acids, purines, or pyrimidines are produced from carbon dioxide with the ferrous sulfide and hydrogen sulfide system. Furthermore, this system does not produce amino acids from carboxylic acids by reductive amination and carboxylation. Thus, the proposed autotrophic theory, using carbon dioxide, ferrous sulfide, and hydrogen sulfide, lacks the robustness needed to be a geological process and is, therefore, unlikely to have played a role in the origin of metabolism or the origin of life.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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