A Strategy for Origins of Life Research

Scharf, Caleb; Virgo, Nathaniel; Cleaves, H. James; Aono, Masashi; Aubert-Kato, Nathanaël; Aydınoğlu, Arsev Umur; Barahona, Ana; Barge, Laura M.; Benner, Steven A.; Biehl, Martin; Brasser, R.; Butch, Christopher J.; Chandru, Kuhan; Cronin, Leroy; Danielache, Sebastian O.; Fischer, Jakob; Hernlund, J. W.; Hut, Piet; Ikegami, Takashi; Kimura, Jun; Kobayashi, Kensei; Mariscal, Carlos; McGlynn, Shawn E.; Ménard, Brice; Packard, Norman H.; Pascal, Robert; Peretó, Juli; Rajamani, Sudha; Sinapayen, Lana; Smith, Eric A.; Switzer, Christopher; Takai, Ken; Tian, Feng; Ueno, Yuichiro; Voytek, Mary A.; Witkowski, Olaf; Yabuta, Hikaru

doi:10.1089/ast.2015.1113

Cited by 58 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…H + CO → HCO, [5] CH 3 + HCO → ½CH 3 CHO * , [6] CH 3 CHO → CH 2 = CHðOHÞ, [7] ½CO-C 2 H 6 → ½C 2 H 5 CHO * → C 2 H 5 CHO, [8] C 2 H 6 → C 2 H 5 + H, [9] H + CO → HCO, [10]…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because COMs constitute more than one-third of all detected interstellar molecules--among them vital precursors to molecular building blocks of life such as the sugar glycolaldehyde (HCOCH 2 OH) (5)--the elucidation of their formation routes will unravel the most fundamental processes that drive the hitherto poorly understood interstellar organic chemistry (6) and define the molecular complexity of organic molecules, which can be synthesized in our galaxy (7), thus ultimately predicting where else in the universe the molecular precursors to the origins of life might be synthesized (8). Origins of life can be summarized as the events producing living systems from nonliving systems (9).…”

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confidence: 99%

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A study of interstellar aldehydes and enols as tracers of a cosmic ray-driven nonequilibrium synthesis of complex organic molecules

Abplanalp

Gozem

Krylov

et al. 2016

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

105

132

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Complex organic molecules such as sugars and amides are ubiquitous in star-and planet-forming regions, but their formation mechanisms have remained largely elusive until now. Here we show in a combined experimental, computational, and astrochemical modeling study that interstellar aldehydes and enols like acetaldehyde (CH 3 CHO) and vinyl alcohol (C 2 H 3 OH) act as key tracers of a cosmic-ray-driven nonequilibrium chemistry leading to complex organics even deep within low-temperature interstellar ices at 10 K. Our findings challenge conventional wisdom and define a hitherto poorly characterized reaction class forming complex organic molecules inside interstellar ices before their sublimation in star-forming regions such as SgrB2(N). These processes are of vital importance in initiating a chain of chemical reactions leading eventually to the molecular precursors of biorelevant molecules as planets form in their interstellar nurseries.astrochemistry | suprathermal chemistry | photoionization | organics | low-temperature kinetics

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A study of interstellar aldehydes and enols as tracers of a cosmic ray-driven nonequilibrium synthesis of complex organic molecules

Abplanalp

Gozem

Krylov

et al. 2016

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

105

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…synthetic, addressing how to construct life from scratch; and universal, attempting to extract features such as 'aliveness' that might apply to life anywhere in the universe [2]. Progress in understanding the chemical bases of life, heralded by the *Author for correspondence (albantakis@wisc.edu).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How causal analysis can reveal autonomy in models of biological systems

Marshall

Kim

Walker

et al. 2017

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

102

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SummaryStandard techniques for studying biological systems largely focus on their dynamical, or, more recently, their informational properties, usually taking either a reductionist or holistic perspective. Yet, studying only individual system elements or the dynamics of the system as a whole disregards the organisational structure of the system -whether there are subsets of elements with joint causes or effects, and whether the system is strongly integrated or composed of several loosely interacting components. Integrated information theory (IIT), offers a theoretical framework to (1) investigate the compositional cause-effect structure of a system, and to (2) identify causal borders of highly integrated elements comprising local maxima of intrinsic cause-effect power. Here we apply this comprehensive causal analysis to a Boolean network model of the fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) cell-cycle. We demonstrate that this biological model features a non-trivial causal architecture, whose discovery may provide insights about the real cell cycle that could not be gained from holistic or reductionist approaches. We also show how some specific properties of this underlying causal architecture relate to the biological notion of autonomy. Ultimately, we suggest that analysing the causal organisation of a system, including key features like intrinsic control and stable causal borders, should prove relevant for distinguishing life from non-life, and thus could also illuminate the origin of life problem.

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“…Such principles would be strong candidates for being universal to all life 4,5 . Universal biology, if it exists, would have important implications for our search for life beyond Earth 6-9 , for engineering synthetic life in the lab 10,11 , and for solving the origin of life 12,13 . Systems biology provides promising quantitative tools for uncovering such general principles [14][15][16] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Universal scaling across biochemical networks on Earth

Kim

Smith

Mathis

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Attempts to identify universal properties of life are limited by the single example of biochemistry on Earth. Using a global database of 28,146 annotated genomes and metagenomes, we report universal scaling laws governing the topology of biochemical networks across levels of organization from individuals, to ecosystems, to the biosphere as a whole. We show the three domains of life are topologically distinguishable, while nonetheless conforming to the same universal scaling laws. Comparing real biochemical networks to networks composed of randomly sampled biochemical reactions reveals the observed scaling is not a product of shared biochemistry alone, but is instead attributable to universal constraints on how global biochemistry is partitioned into individuals. The reemergence of the same regularities across levels of organization hints at general principles governing biochemical network architecture.There is increasing interest in whether life has universal properties, not tied to its specific chemical instantiation (1). Universal biology, if it exists, would have important implications for constraining the origins of life, engineering synthetic life and guiding the search for life beyond Earth (2, 3). Systems biology provides promising tools for uncovering such general principles. One approach has been to study the topology of organismal metabolic networks, revealing common 'scale-free' structure for all three domains of life (4). Another approach is identification of scaling laws describing remarkable consistency in scaling of biomass, biodiversity, and metabolic rate (5-9). However, so far it has been difficult to unify these patterns across all levels of organization where living processes persist, from individuals to ecosystems to the biosphere. A more convincing case for universal biology would be made by demonstrating all life on Earth shares similar properties, independent of biochemical diversity or level of organization. Here we show biochemical networks conform to universal scaling laws governing their global topology, which tightly constrain not only the network structure of individuals, but also that of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole.

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A Strategy for Origins of Life Research

Cited by 58 publications

References 15 publications

A study of interstellar aldehydes and enols as tracers of a cosmic ray-driven nonequilibrium synthesis of complex organic molecules

A study of interstellar aldehydes and enols as tracers of a cosmic ray-driven nonequilibrium synthesis of complex organic molecules

How causal analysis can reveal autonomy in models of biological systems

Universal scaling across biochemical networks on Earth

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