Mineral surface chemistry control for origin of prebiotic peptides

Erastova, Valentina; Degiacomi, Matteo T.; Fraser, Dean; Greenwell, H. Christopher

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02248-y

Cited by 105 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The activity of the water generated in these proto-biosynthetic reactions may have been kept low in the hydrous innards of green rust and mackinawite through exosmosis to the salty surrounds. [93,186] The AHV theory as it stands, focuses on how the hydrous interlayers or channels in green rust, and to a lesser degree in mackinawite, likely mediated the imposed proton gradient and, through the bifurcation of electron pairs, effectively stepped up the redox gradients to the effect of driving an organic takeover. [4] We are conscious that the relative contributions of green rust, mackinawite and associated minerals, and how they may have cooperated in Leduc's 'synthetic biology', has been left unresolved.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Erastova and her collaborators -noting how mineral surfaces "may have very high enthalpies of rehydration" and thereby provide "a driving force for condensation reactions" -have suggested, through molecular dynamics simulations, how layered hydroxides can concentrate, align and act as adsorption templates for amino acids, and promote peptide bond formation. [186] Moreover, following Amend and Shock, Kitadai has found that -in regard to the thermodynamics of amino acid synthesis and polymerization -"hot, alkaline hydrothermal systems beneath cool, slightly acidic Hadean ocean are an energetically excellent setting among possible vent-ocean combinations". [187,188] It might be argued that the water generated in these protobiochemical processes would tend to lyse any product.…”

Section: Green Rust -The First Organizing Nanoengine Of Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?  <strong> </strong>

Russell

2018

Preprint

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The most important problem of synthetic biology is…the reduction of carbonic acid. and Without the idea of spontaneous generation and a physical theory of life, the doctrine of evolution is a mutilated hypothesis without unity or cohesion.[1] Leduc, [1]Abstract: Korenaga and coworkers present evidence to suggest that 4.3 billion years ago the Earth's mantle was dry and water filled the ocean to twice its present volume.[2] CO2 was constantly exhaled during the mafic to ultramafic volcanic activity associated with magmatic plumes that produced the thick, dense and relatively stable oceanic crust. In that setting two distinct major types of sub-marine hydrothermal vents were active: ~400°C acidic springs whose effluents bore vast quantities of iron into the ocean, and ~120°C, highly alkaline and reduced vents exhaling from the cooler, serpentinizing crust at some distance from the heads of the plumes. When encountering the alkaline effluents, the iron from the plume head vents precipitated out forming mounds likely surrounded by voluminous exhalative deposits similar to the banded iron formations known from the Archean. These mounds and the surrounding sediments likely comprising nanocrysts of the variable valence FeII/FeIII oxyhydroxide, green rust. The precipitation of green rust, along with subsidiary iron sulfides and minor concentrations of Ni, Co and Mo in the environment at the alkaline springs may have established both the key bio-syntonic disequilibria, and the means to properly make use of them -those needed to drive the essential inanimate-to-animate transitions that launched life. In the submarine alkaline vent model for the emergence of life specifically it is first suggested that the redox-flexible green rust microcrysts spontaneously formed precipitated barriers to the complete mixing of carbonic ocean and alkaline hydrothermal fluids, barriers that created and maintained steep ionic disequilibria; and second, that the hydrous interlayers of green rust acted as 'engines' that were powered by those ionic disequilibria and drove essential endergonic reactions. There, aided by sulfides and trace elements acting as catalytic promoters and electron transfer agents, nitrate could be reduced to ammonia and carbon dioxide to formate, while methane may have been oxidized to methyl and formyl groups. Acetate and higher carboxylic acids could then have been produced from these C1 molecules and aminated to amino acids, and thence oligomerized to offer peptide nests to phosphate and iron sulfides and secreted to form primitive amyloid-bounded structures, leading conceivably to protocells.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Green Rust -The First Organizing Nanoengine Of Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?  <strong> </strong>

Russell

2018

Preprint

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“…Also omitted are the interlayer water molecules that act as a proton wire within and along the green rust nanocrysts . Four further water molecules are produced per molecule of ammonia and more water still is produced through other reductions and condensations, leading to a low osmolarity in the interlayers compared to the ocean and hydrothermal fluid on either side of the membrane . Influenced by oscillating temperature, this non‐structural (waste) water is “sucked” out of the interlayers through exosmosis into these salty solutions, thus maintaining low water activity within the galleries .…”

Section: What Does All This Have To Do With the Emergence Of Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Four further water molecules are produced per molecule of ammonia and more water still is produced through other reductions and condensations, leading to a low osmolarity in the interlayers compared to the ocean and hydrothermal fluid on either side of the membrane . Influenced by oscillating temperature, this non‐structural (waste) water is “sucked” out of the interlayers through exosmosis into these salty solutions, thus maintaining low water activity within the galleries . In these same galleries the ammonia can go on to effect the amination of amino acids which may then polymerize to heterochiral peptides.…”

Section: What Does All This Have To Do With the Emergence Of Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Frankenstein or a Submarine Alkaline Vent: Who is Responsible for Abiogenesis?

Branscomb

Russell

2018

BioEssays

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We argued in Part 1 of this series that because all living systems are extremely far-from-equilibrium dynamic confections of matter, they must necessarily be driven to that state by the conversion of chemically specific external disequilibria into specific internal disequilibria. Such conversions require task-specific macromolecular engines. We here argue that the same is not only true of life at its emergence; it is the enabling cause of that emergence; although here the external driving disequilibria, and the conversion engines needed must have been abiotic. We argue further that the initial step in life's emergence can only create an extremely simple non-equilibrium "seed" from which all the complexity of life must then develop. We assert that this complexity develops incrementally and progressively, each step tested for value added "in flight." And we make the case that only the submarine alkaline hydrothermal vent (AHV) model has the potential to satisfy these requirements.

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“…Previous studies indicate that surfaces might have played a role in catalysis and synthesis of compounds relevant to prebiotic chemistry, e.g. enhanced polymerization of aminoacids on mineral surfaces 11 , or the synthesis of prebiotic peptides 12 and RNA 13 . Our work shows that the surface-assisted subcompartmentalization of protocells is a feasible recurring process and, due to the minimal requirements, could have potentially occurred under early Earth conditions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Subcompartmentalization and pseudo-division of model protocells

Spustová

Köksal

Ainla

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Membrane enclosed intracellular compartments have been exclusively associated with the eukaryotes, represented by the highly compartmentalized last eukaryotic common ancestor. Recent evidence showing the presence of membranous compartments with specific functions in archaea and bacteria makes it conceivable that the last universal common ancestor and its hypothetical precursor, the protocell, could have exhibited compartmentalization. To our knowledge, there are no experimental studies yet that have tested this hypothesis. We report on an autonomous subcompartmentalization mechanism for protocells which results in the transformation of initial subcompartments to daughter protocells. The process is solely determined by the fundamental materials properties and interfacial events, and do not require biological machinery or chemical energy supply. In the light of our findings, we propose that similar events could have taken place under early Earth conditions, leading to the development of compartmentalized cells and potentially, primitive division.The origin of the eukaryotic cell is closely associated with the development of subcompartments, which create specific micro-environments to spatially or temporally regulate biochemical reactions, simultaneously. Until recently, cellular compartmentalization was associated solely with eukaryotic systems. Recent evidence shows that membrane-enclosed compartments also exist in other domains of life, such as in Archaea and Bacteria 1,2 . Archaea, for example, have acidocalcisomes, the membrane enclosed electron-dense granular organelles rich in calcium and phosphate, which is crucial for osmoregulation and calcium homeostasis 3 . In Cyanobacteria, membrane-bound thylakoids 4 , have been identified as compartments in which the light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis take place.Despite the differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic compartments in terms of structural and functional complexity, the presence of membranous compartments in Procaryota 1 establishes a possibility of compartments having existed in protocells, and being evolutionarily conserved. There is essentially no experimental material, however, on how compartments could have consistently emerged from membranes in a prebiotic environment lacking membrane-shaping and -stabilizing proteins.Membrane-less laboratory models of cytoplasmic suborganization have been developed inside synthetic cells, i.e. giant unilamellar vesicles 5 . These models require moderately elaborate chemical systems. A few examples of the utilized materials and mechanisms to induce compartment formation involve thermo-responsive hydrogels 6 , pH driven protein (human serum albumin) localization 7 or a poly(ethylene glycol)-dextran aqueous two-phase system 8 . One study which report on the membrane-based multi-vesiculation inside amphiphilic compartments, has employed protein-ligand couples to induce this behavior, i.e. biotin-avidin conjugates 9 . Membrane-enveloped subcompartment formation in biological systems is therefore considered t...

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Mineral surface chemistry control for origin of prebiotic peptides

Cited by 105 publications

References 40 publications

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?  <strong> </strong>

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life?  <strong> </strong>

Frankenstein or a Submarine Alkaline Vent: Who is Responsible for Abiogenesis?

Subcompartmentalization and pseudo-division of model protocells

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Mineral surface chemistry control for origin of prebiotic peptides

Cited by 105 publications

References 40 publications

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing &lsquo;Seed&rsquo; of All Life?&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong> </strong>

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing &lsquo;Seed&rsquo; of All Life?&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong> </strong>

Frankenstein or a Submarine Alkaline Vent: Who is Responsible for Abiogenesis?

Subcompartmentalization and pseudo-division of model protocells

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life? <strong> </strong>

Green Rust: The Simple Organizing ‘Seed’ of All Life? <strong> </strong>