Département de chimie moléculaire

Since methionine is capable of self-activation, the dipeptides formed by the reaction of its activated form with another amino acid were over-represented in the primitive ocean. This hypothesis gives a key role to methionine in the development of life on the Earth. It could explain why a Met residue begins the synthesis of all proteins, while it is usually not necessary for its catalytic activity, and why the start codon is relatively variable in prokaryotes.