Give or take an -OH group on the ribose, it's the same 'A' found in RNA and
DNA, so it's been around at least as long as the RNA world (if you subscribe
to that idea).  Purines and pyrimidines have multiple routes of abiotic
synthesis, e.g. HCN polymerization, so it's feasible to have at least some
of the constituents of ATP on the very early Earth -- and I'll bet some
smart organic chemist out there has demonstrated ATP formation from a
prebiotic soup.  Nature is big on recycling.

"Vernon Drake"  wrote in message
news:bff4q0$1cek$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> The living cells break down "Glucose" gradually,
> incorporating the energy as it is released into another
> compound ATP. I know all the properties of ATP as when
> a cell needs energy it can break off a phosphste group
> usually only one, which changes it to ADP. I'm not
> interested in the break down of glucose to PYRUVIC ACID
> and it's further breakdown to four hydrogen atoms
> which provides the energy to rebuild ATP through the
> splitting of these hydrogen into H+ and high-energy
> electrons which are caught by the electron transport
> chain and hold on to the electron long enough to change
> the ADP to ATP. What I would like to know is the "origin"
> of the ATP. Is this a molecule that is just floating around
> in the cytoplasm or more specificly in the mitochondrion
> just  wating to be activated by an enzyme? I was
> considering  cell respiration not photosynthesis as a
> process of extracting energy from glucose but, but it
> doesn't really matter for the energy is used to convert
> ADP to ATP. As I will repeate I'm interested in the nature of ATP itself
for
> most texts treat this as some sort of
> God that happens to be there.
>
>
>
>
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