event detection "Maybe it was necessary" to the emergence of life on earth

The origin of life on Earth from many non-living molecules has always been a mystery. Experiments can show us how the major steps could have taken place.

Water, for example, seems essential to life from the very beginning. However, the developmental process of some of the most important components of life exhibits a frustrating aversion to getting wet.

As John Yen, a biochemical engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says: “We know that amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and proteins are essential for life. And the question has always been in prebiotic chemistry: how do we get these things to form bonds and threads in this way? that it could eventually lead to a living cell. And the question is tricky because some chemical processes tend to fail in the presence of water.” The prevailing theory since Charles Darwin is that life originated from a distinctly moist “primordial soup” , making it difficult to agree on the exact role that water may have played in the origin of these first stable and self-perpetuating reactions.

So Hayley Boyginzan, a chemical engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, did a study on a simulated environmental variable—an environment in which conditions change between wet and dry, which can easily be replicated in nature with tide and day and night cycles. as well as changing weather.

Boyginzan’s team put together a set of amino acids that are found to be easily produced naturally. As the building blocks of proteins—units that can do the mechanical work of living processes—the resulting structures could play a key role in early life.

Unfortunately, connecting these units together in longer chains is a difficult task. In this case, the researchers used the amino acid glycine.

They then added trimetaphosphate, a molecule found naturally in volcanoes. Finally, the soup was “seasoned” with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to increase the acidity.

During the first hour of the experiment, glycine couples to form a two-link molecule called a dimer. This reaction releases protons, which in turn neutralize the pH, effectively slowing down the whole process.

As was found in previous studies, as the pH of the solution became more neutral, the dimers slowly began to bind to each other in longer chains. However, as the solution dried, the reaction rate increased, possibly due to the closer concentrations of the molecules.

“Here we show that all reactions do not have to be in the same environment,” Boyginzan says. Steps”.

The cycle of transitions between wet and dry conditions can turn a molecule into more complex proteins, some of which can enhance other chemical reactions that occur in life. The fact that these interaction mechanisms have been known for many years and the relationship between them has been limitedly evaluated suggests that it may be worthwhile to pay more attention to the influence of the interactions of putative prebiotics on the environment, in addition to the influence of the environment on the reactions.

Earlier this year, chemists discovered that free-floating amino acids are more reactive at the air-water interface of tiny droplets. Moreover, these reactions occurred in natural environmental conditions without the need for other chemicals or radiation.

There is still a long way to go before understanding all that goes with it, but understanding the processes behind the creation of life could also open the door to new, more powerful technologies based on chemistry.

This study was published in the journal Origin of Life and the Evolution of the Oceans.

Source: Science Alert

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