Resolving the enigma of prebiotic COP bond formation: Prebiotic hydrothermal synthesis of important biological phosphate esters

Abstract

Important biological phosphate esters such as sn-glycerol-3-phosphate, glycerol-2-phosphate, and phosphoethanolamine were synthesized under hydrothermal conditions. Phosphorus was incorporated into the biomolecules, leading to the formation of C O P type compounds hydrothermally. Only perlite-catalyzed reaction at 180• C could result in the formation of sn-glycerol-3-phosphate, whereas glycerol-2-phosphate could be easily synthesized at 100• C with or without minerals and phosphoethanolamine was obtained within a temperature range of 100 to 120

Mimicking the prebiotic acidic hydrothermal environment: One‐pot prebiotic hydrothermal synthesis of glucose phosphates

“…In addition, in our earlier series of experiments, we have also demonstrated the catalytic significance of such minerals under hydrothermal conditions 22,23. Hence, it can be assumed that acidic hydrothermal systems have played a significant role in the origin of life and also acted as a site for the occurrence of many potential prebiotic minerals.…”

“…The particle size and chemical composition of the kaolinite have already been discussed 23, whereas the chemical composition of montmorillonite as follows: 36.09% H 2 O, 43.77% SiO 2, 18.57% Al 2 O 3 , 1.02% CaO, 1.13% Na 2 O, and particle size, that is, in diameter 7–8 μm, respectively. Glucose and phosphoric acid were bought from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, P. R. China) and were of A.R.…”

“…There are only few known examples of their prebiotic synthesis 32,33. In our earlier work, we have reported the synthesis of some important phosphate esters under acidic hydrothermal conditions 23.…”

Some heterocyclic compound formation under hydrothermal conditions: implications for prebiotic chemistry

“…Under hydrothermal conditions the syntheses from inorganic molecules have already been carried out (Tian et al , 2007Ji et al , 2008 ;He et al , 2010 ). Moreover, many bioorganic molecules have also been obtained, such as amino acids and their respective oligopeptides, phosphate esters, pyrimidine and purine bases (Hennet et al , 1992 ;Imai et al , 1999 ;Feng et al , 2008 ;Aubrey et al , 2009 ;Larowe and Regnier , 2009 ;Maheen et al , 2010 ). In our previous work, we synthesized phenol and alanine under similar conditions (Tian et al , 2007Feng et al , 2008 ).…”

Semipermeable Mixed Phospholipid-Fatty Acid Membranes Exhibit K+/Na+ Selectivity in the Absence of Proteins

“…The presence of high membrane permeability in the protocells would mean that they could have prevented the potential damage induced by osmotic pressure but could not have retained and accumulated K + over Na + and the small metabolites generated by primitive metabolism in their interior. In the presence of phospholipids synthesized abiotically [16][17][18][19][20], mixed lipid membranes would have formed in protocells at intermediate stages of evolution. The evolution of SCA lipid membranes to mixed fatty acid-phospholipid and eventually to phospholipid-enriched membranes could have been driven by environmental pressures, such as the presence of Mg 2+ ions in the environment [14,21].…”