Scientists from Rutgers University and the City College of New York in the United States have identified a protein that could " And it turned out to be a simple peptide, which they called nickelback (nickelback), according to Science Alert..

This name is not an homage to the famous Canadian rock band. Rather, it refers to the backbone of a protein, consisting of a chain of amino acids and two nitrogen atoms bonded to a pair of nickel atoms..

[see_also ids\u003d"

The discovery may not only shed light on how life began on Earth, but also give astronomers a clue to the search for potentially habitable worlds where life may just begin to form..

“Scientists believe that somewhere between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago there was a tipping point that gave impetus to the transition from prebiotic chemistry - molecules that predated life - to living biological systems.. We believe this change was caused by several small precursor proteins that performed key steps in an ancient metabolic reaction.. And we think we've found one of these pioneering peptides,"

To determine what this peptide was, the scientists started with modern proteins that power metabolic processes that are critical for controlling many biochemical reactions.. Ancient proteins were supposed to be much simpler, so modern ones were broken down into basic components..

A series of experiments showed that nickelback is a likely candidate for the role of a catalytic protein.. It is simple enough to form on prebiotic Earth, but complex enough to take energy from the environment and transform it.. It uses a total of 13 amino acids, often referred to as the building blocks of proteins and life itself..

Scientists have found that when bonded to a protein component, nickel atoms act as a catalyst to release hydrogen gas.. The latter was a vital source of energy billions of years ago..

If nickelback played an important role in the origin of life on Earth, it is reasonable to assume that it could have formed on other planets as well, perhaps those that are not as far advanced in their evolution as ours..