The Abiotic Formation of Pyrrole under Volcanic, Hydrothermal Conditions—An Initial Step towards Life’s First Breath?

Porphyrins, corrins, and tetrapyrroles constitute macrocycles in essential biomolecules such as heme, chlorophyll, cobalamin, and cofactor F430. The chemical synthesis as well as the enzymatic synthesis of these macrocycles starts from pyrrole derivatives. We here show that pyrrole and dimethyl pyrrole can be formed under the simulated volcanic, hydrothermal conditions of Early Earth, starting from acetylene, propyne, and ammonium salts in the presence of NiS or CoS as catalysts.

Reversible Metal-Centered Reduction Empowers a Ni-Corrin to Mimic F430

This communication presents a novel truncated NiII-containing metbalamin and describes its reversible one electron reduction to a catalytically active NiI species, that features cofactor F430 model character. Our results strikingly...