Overview
- Researchers published a paper in Science Advances in August 2026 that uses an algorithmic ordering of enzyme structures to infer the sequence of metabolic steps at life’s origin.
- The team reports that metals in reactive environments, such as hydrothermal vents, could have catalyzed roughly half of core metabolic reactions before enzymes evolved inside proto-cells.
- Laboratory tests showed that phosphite, a natural form of phosphorus, combined with palladium can drive phosphorylation reactions in water that mimic early metabolic chemistry without ATP or enzymes.
- The authors find cases where bacteria and archaea evolved structurally different enzymes to carry out the same reactions, a pattern they interpret as the two lineages independently reaching fully enzyme-driven, free-living states.
- The claim would reshape ideas about LUCA and the tree of life but is described by the authors as provisional and requires independent replication, alternative phylogenetic analyses, and geological corroboration.