The Role of Inorganic Compounds in the Prebiotic Synthesis of Organic Molecules

Abstract

One popular model suggests that life on Earth originates from a prebiotic soup, which is the idea that a large amount of different elements spontaneously came together in a pool to form basic organic moleculars. These basic organic moleculars are believed to have then condensed and reacted to form more complex organic moleculars and then eventually formed the original life. In the process of chemical evolution, the conversion of inorganic compounds to small organic moleculars is the first and indispensable step for the origin of life. Scientists have designed many experiments that could provide evidence in support of the theory of the prebiotic soup. In these experiments, small moleculars of CO 2 , CO, CH 4 or CH 3 SH have ever been taken as the building blocks for the synthesis of organic molecules. When introducing H 2 S, N 2 , NH 3 et al., amino acids, nucleotides and other possible monomers, nonenzymatically condensing to form oligomeric products, could be synthesized. Meanwhile, pyrite, coprecipitated (Ni,Fe)S, Fe 3 O 4 as well as some other minerals might take part in the processes of selection, concentration and energy supplement, especially of the emergence of chirality preference in the extant amino acids and sugars in living organisms. Herein recent progress made in the research into the prebiotic soup theory of the origin of life is reviewed. Finally, after discussion of the possible existence of carbon nanotubes in primitive earth, their morphology similarity, affinity and selectivity with biology moleculars, it is proposed that carbon nanotubes might play a significant role in the origin of life.

The Effects of Ferrous and other Ions on the Abiotic Formation of Biomolecules using Aqueous Aerosols and Spark Discharges

“…Following this hypotheses the HCN is implicated in the formation of the precursors of amino acids and heterocycles such as purine and pyrimidines bases (Borquez et al 2005;Saladino et al 2004;Levy and Miller 1999;Voet and Schwartz 1982;Oró 1960). If HCN polymerization was actually important for the production of the first and essential biomolecules, there must have routes by which dilute HCN solutions were concentrated (Chen and Chen 2005). The formation of Prussian Blue offers an alternative mechanism for the concentration of cyanide in the form of the ferrocyanide, [Fe(CN) 6 ] 4− ion (Arrhenius et al 1994).…”

Unmodified Nano‐Powder Magnetite Catalyzes a Four‐ Component Aza‐Sakurai Reaction

“…So, for many applications, the protection of the naked magnetic particle, including grafting or coating with new organic or inorganic layers, is crucial, [2] and permits their further functionalization. [3] Among the different magnetic nanoparticles, Fe 3 O 4 is the most important one, and although naked magnetite seems to play a capital role in pre-biotic chemistry, [4] its use as a catalyst has been quite limited to only a few examples, including carbon-carbon double bond isomerization, [5] modified FischerTropsch reaction, [6] water-gas shift reaction, [7] dehydrogenation [8] and epoxidation [9] processes, many of them performed under very extreme reaction conditions.…”

Modeling the complex dynamics of enzyme-pathway coevolution

“…Here, we consider only the atoms H, C, O, N, P and S, because 80% of all metabolites in the KEGG database are composed of these elements. As seed, we choose H 2 O, CO 2 , H 2 SO 4 , H 2 PO 3 , NH 3 and H + [1,40]. The choice of a first enzyme sequence is made by using conserved sequence fragments [41][42][43] to be enzymes of the function 3.6.3.21, see Methods.…”

“…We use the following primordial seed of compounds: 3 and H + , [1,40]. In order to identify the putative first enzymes, we use work by Y. Sobolevsky [41][42][43] who identified common conserved protein fragments in 131 proteomes.…”