Phosphorus - Giver of Life - Universal Paradox of Biology

Scientific enquiry about the origin of life on earth has taken many forms over many centuries. My research focus on the uniqueness of phosphorus follows seminal thinking by Todd and by Westheimer. They made presumptive statements that were forward looking, though inadequately supported by experimental evidence at the time.

From a prebiotic beginning I shall ask: How did Earth gain sufficient phosphorus to support life? I shall suggest how prebiotic phosphorus material might have led to phosphate, and also survey whether earth has sufficient reserves of phosphorus to sustain life into future centuries.

Today, the central paradox of phosphate in the biosphere is the contrast between:

• The amazing stability of phosphate esters (that give DNA its remarkable stability with a half-life of a phosphate diester greater than the life of our universe), and
• The exceptional speed of enzymatic phosphorylation/dephosphorylation (making cellular signalling possible on the millisecond time-scale needed for cellular mobility).

This duality underpins the enormous diversity of the use of phosphate esters and anhydrides throughout living systems.

The core of the lecture will explore the basis of enzyme catalysis of phosphoryl transfer reactions, capable of reducing the inherent stability of phosphate esters by a factor approaching 10²¹, thereby making life viable. Protein crystallography, chemical ingenuity, and computational chemistry are the tools that can uncover many of its details. In Sheffield, we have prized open the secrets of phosphoryl transfer for phosphomutases, phosphatases, kinases, and small G proteins by the symbiotic use of ¹⁹F NMR and protein crystallography allied, most recently, to quantum mechanical computation.

The remarkably facile manipulation of phosphates is revealed as a central activity of life on earth, and hence of life anywhere else in the Universe.

Link to webpage of speaker: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/mbb/staff/blackburn   

There is also the possibility to meet Mike Blackburn before or after the talk for a chat. Please contact Christian Roth -  christian.roth@york.ac.uk to arrange this.