Electric Field Catalysis and the Metabolic Origin of Life

Metabolic theories for the origin of life postulate that chemical reaction networks emerged spontaneously from geochemistry and grew more complex due to positive feedback effects in catalysis. However, experimentally establishing protometabolic networks has proven challenging. In this Perspective, we make the case for electric field catalysis at charged aqueous interfaces as a crucial overlooked element for initiating protometabolic networks, an initial constraint that foreshadows the eventual takeover of electrostatic catalysis by enzymes. We first overview types of positive feedback relevant to the early evolution of metabolism, the theory of electric field catalysis, and its dominant role in enzyme catalysis. We then examine recent experiments and calculations highlighting the ability of external electric fields to enable nonenzymatic analogues of challenging metabolic reactions in micro- to millisecond reaction times. An underexplored mode of small molecule catalysis (reorientation catalysis) that can only operate in external electric fields is proposed to make positive feedback within prebiotic reaction networks more achievable. By embodying electrostatic catalysis, compartmentalization, and ion concentration gradients, charged aqueous interfaces prepattern three fundamental features of biology, making them a preferred environment for a metabolic origin of life. Making robust progress on the origin of life may surprisingly require exploring the nascent area of electric field-mediated chemistry at aqueous interfaces. Life does not use electric fields to catalyze its metabolic network by accident.