Evolution of Realistic Organic Mixtures for the Origins of Life through Wet–Dry Cycling

Sci

Kimsorn Seng¹  Brooke Hillman¹  Sarah Maurer¹  Kiernan Foster¹  Vahab Rajaei² 

[1] Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT 06010, USA;Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA;

关键词: origins of life;    prebiotic chemistry;    astrobiology;   

DOI  :  10.3390/sci4020022

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

One of the challenges in understanding chemical evolution is the large number of starting organics and environments that were plausible on early Earth. Starting with realistic organic mixtures and using chemical analyses that are not biologically biased, understanding the interplay between organic composition and environment can be approached using statistical analysis. In this work, a mixture of 73 organics was cycled through dehydrating conditions five times, considering environmental parameters of pH, salinity, and rehydration solution. Products were analyzed by HPLC, amide and ester assays, and phosphatase and esterase assays. While all environmental factors were found to influence chemical evolution, salinity was found to play a large role in the evolution of these mixtures, with samples diverging at very high sea salt concentrations. This framework should be expanded and formalized to improve our understanding of abiogenesis.

【 授权许可】

Unknown