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Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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(GQR42/OOL1) Ordering-Selected Emergence of Flavin Cofactors under Enzyme-Free Environmental Cycling

Authors: SUTTON, JAMES;

(GQR42/OOL1) Ordering-Selected Emergence of Flavin Cofactors under Enzyme-Free Environmental Cycling

Abstract

The pre-enzymatic emergence of metabolic cofactors remains a central open problem inorigin-of-life chemistry. Flavin cofactors (FMN/FAD) are chemically complex, redox-active, andevolutionarily universal, yet no single enzyme-free synthesis pathway is known to be uniquelyfavoured under equilibrium or yield-based reasoning. Here we show that temporal ordering aloneis sufficient to resolve this ambiguity.Using Accessibility–Ordering Invariance (AOI), we treat environmental cycling—such as ul-traviolet irradiation, hydration, adsorption, and shelter—not as background conditions but asordered accessibility windows that act as control variables. We construct an explicit and finiteflavin reaction web incorporating canonical wet-gated steps, photochemical activation channels,and realistic photolysis sinks. Route scoring under AOI reveals that ordering collapses thisspace to a single dominant backbone across exposed, sheltered, and seasonally cycled planetaryenvironments.The selected backbone is characterised by ultraviolet-first activation followed by immediatewet-phase capture via transient excited or radical flavin intermediates. Purely wet-gated routesare ordering-neutral, while stable photoaddition products are consistently secondary and sup-pressed once sinks are included. Competition analysis shows that the radical-mediated backboneremains dominant across parameter sweeps, indicating a robust ordering selection rather thanfine-tuned kinetics.These results imply that flavin cofactors could emerge without enzymes through environ-mental ordering alone, with the environment itself acting as a sequencing agent. The analysisyields a direct experimental prediction: under identical total ultraviolet dose and hydration time,UV→wet ordering must produce measurably different flavin-family outcomes than wet→UV or-dering. Full route enumeration, sink competition, and robustness analyses are provided in theSupplementary Information and the public GQR repository [1, 2].

Keywords

prebiotic chemistry, Flavins/chemistry, Origin of Life, photoactivation chemistry, UV-wet cycling, semiquinone intermediates, sink competition, finite reaction graph, ordering-sensitive transport, non-commuting accessibility, route-space reduction, reaction network collapse, FAD synthesis, radical-mediated capture

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
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