Scientists Say We May Have Been Wrong About the Origin of Life
Ancient evidence suggests a new twist in how we all got here.
By Caroline Delbert
Published: Jun 04, 2025 12:37 PM EDT
- In a new peer reviewed analysis, scientists quantify amino acids before and after our “last universal common ancestor.”
- The last universal common ancestor is the single life form that branched into everything since.
- Earth four billion years ago may help us check for life on one of Saturn’s moons today.
Scientists are making a case for adjusting our understanding of how exactly genes first emerged. For a while, there’s been a consensus about the order in which the building-block amino acids were “added” into the box of Lego pieces that build our genes. But according to genetic researchers at the University of Arizona, our previous assumptions may reflect biases in our understanding of biotic (living) versus abiotic (non-living) sources.
In other words, our current working model of gene history could be undervaluing early protolife (which included forerunners like RNA and peptides), as compared to what emerged with and after the beginning of life. Our understanding of these extremely ancient times will always be incomplete, but it’s important for us to keep researching early Earth. The scientists explain that any improvements in that understanding could not only allow us to know more of our own story, but also help us search for the beginnings of life elsewhere in the universe.
In this new paper, published in the peer reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers led by senior author Joanna Masel and first author Sawsan Wehbi explain that vital pieces of our proteins (a.k.a. amino acids) date back four billion years—to the last universal common ancestor ( LUCA) of all life on Earth. These chains of dozens or more amino acids, called protein domains, are “like a wheel” on a car, Wehbi said in a statement: “It’s a part that can be used in many different cars, and wheels have been around much longer than cars.”
The group used specialized software and National Center for Biotechnology Information data to build an evolutionary (so to speak) tree of these protein domains, which were not theorized or observed until the 1970s. Our knowledge of these details has grown by leaps and bounds.
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One big paradigm shift proposed by this research is the idea that we should rethink the order in which the 20 essential genetic amino acids emerged from the stew of early Earth. The scientists argue that the current model overemphasizes how often an amino acid appeared in an early life form, leading to a theory that the amino acid found in the highest saturation must have emerged first. This folds into existing research, like a 2017 paper suggesting that our amino acids represent the best of the best, not just a “frozen accident” of circumstances. In the new paper, the scientists say that amino acids could have even come from different portions of young Earth, rather than from the entire thing as a uniform environment.
Tryptophan, the maligned “sleepy” amino found in Thanksgiving turkey, was a particular standout to the scientists (its letter designation is W). “[T]here is scientific consensus that W was the last of the 20 canonical amino acids to be added to the genetic code,” the scientists wrote. But they found 1.2% W in the pre-LUCA data and just .9% after LUCA. Those values may seem small, but that’s a 25% difference.
Why would the last amino acid to emerge be more common before the branching of all resulting life? The team theorized that the chemical explanation might point to an even older version of the idea of genetics. As in all things evolutionary, there’s no intuitive reason why any one successful thing must be the only of its kind or family to ever exist.
“Stepwise construction of the current code and competition among ancient codes could have occurred simultaneously,” the scientists conclude. And, tantalizingly, “[a]ncient codes might also have used noncanonical amino acids.” These could have emerged around the alkaline hydrothermal vents that are believed to play a key role in how life began, despite the fact that the resulting life forms did not live there for long.
To apply this theory to the rest of the universe, we don’t have to go far, either. “[A]biotic synthesis of aromatic amino acids might be possible in the water–rock interface of Enceladus’s subsurface ocean,” the scientists explain. That’s only as far as Saturn. Maybe a Solar System block party is closer than we think.
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