The question of how life first sparked into existence on our planet is one we haven't yet fully answered, but science is getting closer all the time – and a new study identifies the structures of the proteins that may well have made it happen.
"We saw that the metal-binding cores of existing proteins are indeed similar even though the proteins themselves may not be," says microbiologist Yana Bromberg, from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey.
These shared features may well have been present and working in the earliest proteins, the researchers suggest, changing over time to become the proteins we see today – but keeping certain common structures.
"We have very little information about how life arose on this planet, and our work contributes a previously unavailable explanation," says Bromberg. "This explanation could also potentially contribute to our search for life on other planets and planetary bodies