Clays in prebiological chemistry

Rao, M.; Odom, Daniel G.; Oró, J.

doi:10.1007/bf01733138

Cited by 97 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Prebiotic simulations on mineral surfaces have, since Bernal (1951), employed clays, e.g., K e n y o n and Steinman (1969), Paecht-Horowitz et at. (1970), Katchalski (1973), Fripiat and Cruz-Cumplido (1974), Paecht-Horowitz (1976), P o n n a m p e r u m a et al (1982), Rao et al (1980), Theng (1974); phosphates, e.g., Gibbs et al (1980), N e u m a n et al (1970), and P o n n a m p e r u m a and Chang (1971); carbonates, e.g., .…”

Section: Ia Early Prebiotic Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

A possible energetic role of mineral surfaces in chemical evolution

Coyne

1985

Origins Life Evol Biosphere

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The postulated roles of clays and other minerals in chemical evolution and the origin of life are reconsidered in terms of the interaction of these minerals with penetrating sources of energy such as ionizing radiation and mechanical stress. This interaction, including such facets as excitation, degradation, storage, and transfer, is considered here with regard to its profound potential for altering the capabilities of minerals to serve both as substrates for prebiological chemistry and as inorganic prototypic life forms. The interaction of minerals and energy in relationship to surface chemistry is discussed in terms of the spectroscopic properties of minerals, the interaction of energy with condensed phases, some commonly accepted concepts of heterogeneous catalysis in the absence of electronic energy inputs, and some commonly accepted and novel means by which surface activity might be enhanced in the presence of energy inputs. An estimation is made of the potential contribution of two poorly characterized prebiotic energy sources, natural radioactive decay and triboelectric energy. These estimates place a conservative lower limit on their prebiotic abundance. Also some special properties of these energy sources, relative to solar energy, are pointed out which might give them particular suitability for driving reactions occurring under geological conditions. Skeletal support for this broadly defined framework of demonstrated and potential relationships between minerals, electronic excitation, and surface reactivity, as applied to chemical evolution, is provided from the results of our studies on 1/1 clays. We have discovered and partially characterized a number of novel luminescent properties of these clays, that indicate energy storage and transfer processes in clays. These luminescent properties are interpreted in relationship to the electron spin resonance phenomena, to provide a basis for estimating the potential significance of energy storage and transduction in monitoring or driving clay surface chemistry. Consideration of the electronic structure of abundant minerals in terms of band theory and localized defect centers provides a predictive theoretical framework from which to rationalize the capacity of these materials to store and transduce energy. The bulk crystal is seen as a collecting antenna for electronic energy, with the defect centers serving as storage sites. The clay properties produced by isomorphic substitution appear to be intimately associated with all of the life-mimetic chemical processes that have been attributed to clays.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

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Section: Ia Early Prebiotic Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

A possible energetic role of mineral surfaces in chemical evolution

Coyne

1985

Origins Life Evol Biosphere

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“…However, mineral surfaces, such as clays, can potentially provide templates, surfaces for sorption, and even catalysis of chemical reactions (Goldschmidt 1952;Rao et al 1980;Cairns-Smith 1982;Ponnamperuma et al 1982;Ferris et al 1988;Cairns-Smith et al 1992;Lahav 1994).…”

Section: Craters and The Origin Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

The origin and emergence of life under impact bombardment

Cockell

2006

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

100

104

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Craters formed by asteroids and comets offer a number of possibilities as sites for prebiotic chemistry, and they invite a literal application of Darwin's 'warm little pond'. Some of these attributes, such as prolonged circulation of heated water, are found in deep-ocean hydrothermal vent systems, previously proposed as sites for prebiotic chemistry. However, impact craters host important characteristics in a single location, which include the formation of diverse metal sulphides, clays and zeolites as secondary hydrothermal minerals (which can act as templates or catalysts for prebiotic syntheses), fracturing of rock during impact (creating a large surface area for reactions), the delivery of iron in the case of the impact of iron-containing meteorites (which might itself act as a substrate for prebiotic reactions), diverse impact energies resulting in different rates of hydrothermal cooling and thus organic syntheses, and the indiscriminate nature of impacts into every available lithologygenerating large numbers of 'experiments' in the origin of life. Following the evolution of life, craters provide cryptoendolithic and chasmoendolithic habitats, particularly in non-sedimentary lithologies, where limited pore space would otherwise restrict colonization. In impact melt sheets, shattered, mixed rocks ultimately provided diverse geochemical gradients, which in present-day craters support the growth of microbial communities.

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“…However, the products are mainly dimers and trimers. Longer chains can sometimes result through adsorption to clays (31,32) or minerals (33,34), from evaporation from tidal pools (35), from concentration in ice through eutectic melts (36), or from freezing (37) or temperature cycling. Even so, the chainlength extensions are modest (38).…”

Section: "Flory Length Problem": Polymerization Processes Produce Mosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foldamer hypothesis for the growth and sequence differentiation of prebiotic polymers

Guseva

Zuckermann

Dill

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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It is not known how life originated. It is thought that prebiotic processes were able to synthesize short random polymers. However, then, how do short-chain molecules spontaneously grow longer? Also, how would random chains grow more informational and become autocatalytic (i.e., increasing their own concentrations)? We study the folding and binding of random sequences of hydrophobic (H) and polar (P) monomers in a computational model. We find that even short hydrophobic polar (HP) chains can collapse into relatively compact structures, exposing hydrophobic surfaces. In this way, they act as primitive versions of today's protein catalysts, elongating other such HP polymers as ribosomes would now do. Such foldamer catalysts are shown to form an autocatalytic set, through which short chains grow into longer chains that have particular sequences. An attractive feature of this model is that it does not overconverge to a single solution; it gives ensembles that could further evolve under selection. This mechanism describes how specific sequences and conformations could contribute to the chemistry-to-biology (CTB) transition.origin of life | HP model | biopolymers | autocatalytic sets A mong the most mysterious processes in chemistry is how the spontaneous transition occurred more than 3 billion years ago from a soup of prebiotic molecules to living cells. What was the mechanism of the chemistry-to-biology (CTB) transition? In this paper, we develop a model to explore how prebiotic polymerization processes might have produced long chains of proteinlike or nucleic acid-like molecules (1, 2). What polymerization processes are autocatalytic? How could they have produced long chains? Also, how might random chain sequences have become informational and self-serving? Our questions here are about physical spontaneous mechanisms, not about specific monomer or polymer chemistries. CTB Requires an Autocatalytic ProcessEarly on, it was recognized that the transition from simple chemistry to self-supporting biological behavior requires autocatalysis (i.e., some form of positive feedback or bootstrapping, in which the concentrations of some molecules become amplified and selfsustaining relative to other molecules) (3-8). That work has led to the idea of an autocatalytic set, a collection of entities in which any one entity can catalyze another.We first review some of the key results. A class of models called Graded Autocatalysis Replication Domain (GARD) (9-11) predicts that artificial autocatalytic chemical kinetic networks can lead to self-replication, with a corresponding amplification of some chemicals over others. Such systems display some degree of inheritance and adaptability. GARD model is a subset of metabolism first models, which envision that small molecule chemical processes precede information transfer and precede the first biopolymers. Focusing on polymers, Wu and Higgs (12) developed a model of RNA chain-length autocatalysis. They envision that some of the RNA chains can spontaneously serve as polymerase ribozymes, l...

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Clays in prebiological chemistry

Cited by 97 publications

References 61 publications

A possible energetic role of mineral surfaces in chemical evolution

A possible energetic role of mineral surfaces in chemical evolution

The origin and emergence of life under impact bombardment

Foldamer hypothesis for the growth and sequence differentiation of prebiotic polymers

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