Impact melting of frozen oceans on the early Earth: Implications for the origin of life

Bada, Jeffrey L.; Bigham, C.; Miller, Stanley L.

doi:10.1073/pnas.91.4.1248

Cited by 131 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Attractive environments for such scenarios are in particular hotsprings and geysers, in which freezing and thawing occurs in close proximity and a huge variety of temperature gradients exist. In any case, ice matrices have been abundantly available throughout history, with several theories implying that the Earth's surface might have been largely frozen several times (27,28). Interestingly, the plausibility of ice as a matrix has also been discussed with respect to other aspects about the origin of metabolism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonenzymatic gluconeogenesis-like formation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate in ice

Messner

Driscoll

Piedrafita

et al. 2017

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

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The evolutionary origins of metabolism, in particular the emergence of the sugar phosphates that constitute glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, and the RNA and DNA backbone, are largely unknown. In cells, a major source of glucose and the large sugar phosphates is gluconeogenesis. This ancient anabolic pathway (re-)builds carbon bonds as cleaved in glycolysis in an aldol condensation of the unstable catabolites glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and dihydroxyacetone phosphate, forming the much more stable fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. We here report the discovery of a nonenzymatic counterpart to this reaction. The in-ice nonenzymatic aldol addition leads to the continuous accumulation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate in a permanently frozen solution as followed over months. Moreover, the in-ice reaction is accelerated by simple amino acids, in particular glycine and lysine. Revealing that gluconeogenesis may be of nonenzymatic origin, our results shed light on how glucose anabolism could have emerged in early life forms. Furthermore, the amino acid acceleration of a key cellular anabolic reaction may indicate a link between prebiotic chemistry and the nature of the first metabolic enzymes.T he metabolic network is a large cellular system that generates life's building blocks including amino acids, nucleotides, and lipids. Most of the metabolic pathways that participate in this network are well understood, but their evolutionary origin remains an unsolved problem. The network contains many reactive and unstable intermediates, yet its topological organization is widely conserved and considered ancient. It has therefore been extensively debated to what extent this structure could be the result of Darwinian selection and thus be of postgenetic origin or whether the metabolic network topology dates back to a nonenzymatic chemistry (1-4). A series of recently discovered chemical networks provide evidence for the latter. In the presence of simple inorganic ions as found in Archean sediment, and under conditions that are reminiscent of the chemistry that operates in cells, nonenzymatic reactions replicate essential topological elements of the most central metabolic pathways. Nonenzymatic chemical reactions currently replicate glycolysis (including the EmbdenMeyerhof-Parnas pathway, the Entner-Doudoroff pathway, and their many variants), the pentose phosphate pathway, the catabolic reactions of the TCA cycle, and the formation of the methyl group donor S-adenosylmethionine (5-8). Moreover, reactions of glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway, as well as reactions replicating the oxidative TCA cycle, can each occur in distinct but unifying reaction milieus, respectively. This implies that simple inorganic catalysts were shaping the topological structure of the metabolic network. In other words, the reactions that sugar phosphates undergo in the presence of the highest concentrated transition metal in Archean sediment [Fe(II)] and the reactions that TCA intermediates undergo in the presence of sulfate radicals are reflected i...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonenzymatic gluconeogenesis-like formation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate in ice

Messner

Driscoll

Piedrafita

et al. 2017

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

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“…Some atmospheric models incorporate high partial pressures of CO2 to raise the temperature of the Earth by a greenhouse effect and thus prevent the complete freezing of the oceans (Kasting 1993). However, a frozen Earth has some advantages for prebiotic chemistry (Bada et al 1994). But again, there is no direct evidence either way.…”

Section: What Was the Physical Setting Of The Origin Of Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The origin of life?did it occur at high temperatures?

1995

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Abstract.A high-temperature origin of life has been proposed, largely for the reason that the hyperthermophiles are claimed to be the last common ancestor of modern organisms. Even if they are the oldest extant organisms, which is in dispute, their existence can say nothing about the temperatures of the origin of life, the RNA world, and organisms preceding the hyperthermophiles. There is no geological evidence for the physical setting of the origin of life because there are no unmetamorphosed rocks from that period. Prebiotic chemistry points to a low-temperature origin because most biochemicals decompose rather rapidly at temperatures of 100°C (e.g., half-lives are 73 rain for ribose, 21 days for cytosine, and 204 days for adenine). Hyperthermophiles may appear at the base of some phylogenetic trees because they outcompeted the mesophiles when they adapted to lower temperatures, possibly due to enhanced production of heat-shock proteins.

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“…Other sites for the origin of life have since been proposed, ranging from transient melt zones in a global ice pack (Bada et al 1994) to hydrothermal vents (Corliss et al 1981;Baross & Hoffman 1983) and to subterranean lithic zones (Pace 1991). Many such sites contain microbial populations that are extremophiles, and it has been suggested that the last universal common ancestor lived in a deep hydrothermal site secure from sterilizing giant impacts (Sleep et al 1989).…”

Section: The Physical Environment and The Origin Of Lifementioning

confidence: 99%

Self-assembly processes in the prebiotic environment

Deamer

Singaram

Rajamani

et al. 2006

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

111

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An important question guiding research on the origin of life concerns the environmental conditions where molecular systems with the properties of life first appeared on the early Earth. An appropriate site would require liquid water, a source of organic compounds, a source of energy to drive polymerization reactions and a process by which the compounds were sufficiently concentrated to undergo physical and chemical interactions. One such site is a geothermal setting, in which organic compounds interact with mineral surfaces to promote self-assembly and polymerization reactions. Here, we report an initial study of two geothermal sites where mixtures of representative organic solutes (amino acids, nucleobases, a fatty acid and glycerol) and phosphate were mixed with hightemperature water in clay-lined pools. Most of the added organics and phosphate were removed from solution with half-times measured in minutes to a few hours. Analysis of the clay, primarily smectite and kaolin, showed that the organics were adsorbed to the mineral surfaces at the acidic pH of the pools, but could subsequently be released in basic solutions. These results help to constrain the range of possible environments for the origin of life. A site conducive to self-assembly of organic solutes would be an aqueous environment relatively low in ionic solutes, at an intermediate temperature range and neutral pH ranges, in which cyclic concentration of the solutes can occur by transient dry intervals.

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Impact melting of frozen oceans on the early Earth: Implications for the origin of life

Cited by 131 publications

References 30 publications

Nonenzymatic gluconeogenesis-like formation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate in ice

Nonenzymatic gluconeogenesis-like formation of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate in ice

The origin of life?did it occur at high temperatures?

Self-assembly processes in the prebiotic environment

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