AN ENZYME still toiling away in modern bacteria contains signatures of the prebiotic world, suggesting that it originated in the very earliest cells. The enzyme unlocks energy from a simple molecule called pyrophosphate, and its discovery bolsters the idea that this was how primitive life first got its energy.
The universal energy currency in modern cells is a molecule called ATP. It contains a high-energy bond between two phosphate groups that supplies energy when it is broken. But ATP is a complex organic molecule, and scientists wondered how primitive cells struggling to function as life emerged could have developed such…
