Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
the Krebs cycle can supply all the carbon skeletons and ATP needed for growth, but only when respiration is efficient. When we’re young.
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
this was probably the origin of heterotrophy – eating other cells for sustenance.
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
the electrical potential is too high (because ATP is not being consumed) then Krebs-cycle flux must slow or even reverse. That signals directly to the nucleus, through succinate and citrate, controlling the activity of thousands of genes, the epigenetic state of the cell.
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
a switch to glycolysis even in the presence of oxygen – the Warburg effect – which drives cell growth.
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
If the Krebs cycle is genuinely primordial it must reflect a favoured
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
That suppresses recombination during sex and makes it far more likely that all the genes on the chromosome will stay together in exactly the same order.
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
‘Energy flows, matter cycles.’
Nick Lane • Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death
The problem in all these disparate cases is how to balance the yin and yang of the Krebs cycle – how to offset the needs of energy generation against the synthesis of new organic molecules.