Prebiotic dimer and trimer peptide formation in gas-phase atmospheric nanoclusters of water

Abstract

Insight into the origin of prebiotic molecules is key to our understanding of how living systems evolved into the complex network of biological processes on Earth. By modelling diglycine, diserine,...

Laboratory characterization of hydrothermally processed oligopeptides in ice grains emitted by Enceladus and Europa

“…Peptides form the backbone of proteins used by all known life, so likely play an important role in its origins and emergence on Earth and >90°C [11] fluid composition alkaline, saline alkaline, saline [4] mineral composition serpentine, carbonates, metal-depleted [23,[26][27][28][29] silicates, carbonates, Fe-/Ni-minerals, phosphates [11,15,30] (abiotic) organics methane, low-mass semivolatiles, O-, N-bearing, PAHs [31,32] methane, low-mass volatiles, complex fragments, O-, N-bearing, aromatic [12,14,16] inorganics hydrogen, sulphides, phosphate-limited [23,33] hydrogen, phosphates, sulphides* [12,15] vent structure chimney-like [34] reaction sites within porous core, potentially layered OR front-driven via cracking [35,36] duration of hydrothermal activity >30 kyr [37] <500 Myr [35,36] potentially elsewhere. While glycine and its oligopeptides may have an extraterrestrial origin, endogenous synthesis under prebiotic conditions [62] or shock synthesis induced via cometary impacts [63,64] may have also contributed to the glycine inventory of the early Earth. Similarly, peptide synthesis may have occurred in cell-like prebiotic structures in hydrothermal systems on the early Earth [65].…”