Prebiotic Evolution: ATP Energy

ATP Synthesis with a Single Enzyme

If a single enzyme ever created ATP directly from an oxidation reaction, then it did not survive evolution. So instead consider the dehydrogenase that is involved in glycolysis (the process life use to metabolize sugar), Glyceralehyde 3-P dehydrogenase or G3PD for short. G3PD facilitates an oxidation reaction, and uses the energy released to create a high energy phosphate bond. This high energy phosphate is subsequently transferred to ATP by another enzyme. In theory, an enzyme with a molecular knowledge on par with G3PD should be able to create ATP from ADP. So this section will calculate the knowledge in G3PD, and use it as a benchmark to model a hypothetical enzyme that may have existed on the primitive earth.
         

next: The Evolution of 3PD Knowledge

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