Submarine hot springs and the origin of life

Russell, Michael J.; Hall, Anthony; Cairns-Smith, A. G.; Braterman, Paul S.

doi:10.1038/336117a0

Cited by 138 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Submarine hydrothermal environments were previously envisaged as potential sites for the emergence of life, partly because of their contemporary habitability and partly because essential basic materials can be found in such environments (14,15,(17)(18)(19)(20). The concentration mechanism described here considerably strengthens the scenario for a hydrothermal emergence of life.…”

Section: Hydrothermal Settingmentioning

confidence: 63%

Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems

Philipp

Weinert

Duhr

et al. 2007

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

332

316

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We simulate molecular transport in elongated hydrothermal pore systems influenced by a thermal gradient. We find extreme accumulation of molecules in a wide variety of plugged pores. The mechanism is able to provide highly concentrated single nucleotides, suitable for operations of an RNA world at the origin of life. It is driven solely by the thermal gradient across a pore. On the one hand, the fluid is shuttled by thermal convection along the pore, whereas on the other hand, the molecules drift across the pore, driven by thermodiffusion. As a result, millimeter-sized pores accumulate even single nucleotides more than 10 8 -fold into micrometer-sized regions. The enhanced concentration of molecules is found in the bulk water near the closed bottom end of the pore. Because the accumulation depends exponentially on the pore length and temperature difference, it is considerably robust with respect to changes in the cleft geometry and the molecular dimensions. Whereas thin pores can concentrate only long polynucleotides, thicker pores accumulate short and long polynucleotides equally well and allow various molecular compositions. This setting also provides a temperature oscillation, shown previously to exponentially replicate DNA in the protein-assisted PCR. Our results indicate that, for life to evolve, complicated active membrane transport is not required for the initial steps. We find that interlinked mineral pores in a thermal gradient provide a compelling high-concentration starting point for the molecular evolution of life.concentration problem ͉ hydrothermal vents ͉ molecular evolution ͉ origin of life problem ͉ RNA world

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Section: Hydrothermal Settingmentioning

confidence: 63%

Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems

Philipp

Weinert

Duhr

et al. 2007

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

332

316

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“…chemically reactive 'hatcheries' for the origin of life rather quickly became a popular notion (Corliss et al 1981;Russell et al 1988), although not without staunch critics (Miller & Bada 1988 Russell & Hall (1997) and Russell et al (2003) for details. The terms RNA, RNP and DNA era (instead of 'world') are used to emphasize that no nucleic acid evolution is possible without a supporting geochemistry, later biogeochemistry and finally biochemistry to provide a steady flow of adequate concentrations of polymerizeable precursors (for example nucleotides) and thus to underpin any sort of replication.…”

Section: Iron Monosulphide: 3d Cells Not Just 2d Surfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells

Martin

Russell

2003

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B

730

621

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All life is organized as cells. Physical compartmentation from the environment and self-organization of self-contained redox reactions are the most conserved attributes of living things, hence inorganic matter with such attributes would be life's most likely forebear. We propose that life evolved in structured iron monosulphide precipitates in a seepage site hydrothermal mound at a redox, pH and temperature gradient between sulphide-rich hydrothermal fluid and iron(II)-containing waters of the Hadean ocean floor. The naturally arising, three-dimensional compartmentation observed within fossilized seepage-site metal sulphide precipitates indicates that these inorganic compartments were the precursors of cell walls and membranes found in free-living prokaryotes. The known capability of FeS and NiS to catalyse the synthesis of the acetyl-methylsulphide from carbon monoxide and methylsulphide, constituents of hydrothermal fluid, indicates that pre-biotic syntheses occurred at the inner surfaces of these metal-sulphide-walled compartments, which furthermore restrained reacted products from diffusion into the ocean, providing sufficient concentrations of reactants to forge the transition from geochemistry to biochemistry. The chemistry of what is known as the RNA-world could have taken place within these naturally forming, catalyticwalled compartments to give rise to replicating systems. Sufficient concentrations of precursors to support replication would have been synthesized in situ geochemically and biogeochemically, with FeS (and NiS) centres playing the central catalytic role. The universal ancestor we infer was not a free-living cell, but rather was confined to the naturally chemiosmotic, FeS compartments within which the synthesis of its constituents occurred. The first free-living cells are suggested to have been eubacterial and archaebacterial chemoautotrophs that emerged more than 3.8 Gyr ago from their inorganic confines. We propose that the emergence of these prokaryotic lineages from inorganic confines occurred independently, facilitated by the independent origins of membrane-lipid biosynthesis: isoprenoid ether membranes in the archaebacterial and fatty acid ester membranes in the eubacterial lineage. The eukaryotes, all of which are ancestrally heterotrophs and possess eubacterial lipids, are suggested to have arisen ca. 2 Gyr ago through symbiosis involving an autotrophic archaebacterial host and a heterotrophic eubacterial symbiont, the common ancestor of mitochondria and hydrogenosomes. The attributes shared by all prokaryotes are viewed as inheritances from their confined universal ancestor. The attributes that distinguish eubacteria and archaebacteria, yet are uniform within the groups, are viewed as relics of their phase of differentiation after divergence from the non-free-living universal ancestor and before the origin of the free-living chemoautotrophic lifestyle. The attributes shared by eukaryotes with eubacteria and archaebacteria, respectively, are viewed as inheritances via symbiosis. The ...

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“…Another line of research on precipitation tubes focuses on hydrothermal vents and has been pursued by Russell and co-workers [45,46]. Their primary interest is the possible role of these structures in prebiotic chemistry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tubular precipitation structures: materials synthesis under non-equilibrium conditions

Makki

Roszol

Pagano

et al. 2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Inorganic precipitation reactions are known to self-organize a variety of macroscopic structures, including hollow tubes. We discuss recent advances in this field with an emphasis on experiments similar to 'silica gardens'. These reactions involve metal salts and sodium silicate solution. Reactions triggered from reagent-loaded microbeads can produce tubes with inner radii of down to 3 mm. Distinct wall morphologies are reported. For pump-driven injection, three qualitatively different growth regimes exist. In one of these regimes, tubes assemble around a buoyant jet of reactant solution, which allows the quantitative prediction of the tube radius. Additional topics include relaxation oscillations and the templating of tube growth with pinned gas bubble and mechanical devices. The tube materials and their nano-to-micro architectures are discussed for the cases of silica/Cu(OH) 2 and silica/Zn(OH) 2 /ZnO tubes. The latter case shows photocatalytic activity and photoluminescence.

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Submarine hot springs and the origin of life

Cited by 138 publications

References 8 publications

Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems

Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems

On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells

Tubular precipitation structures: materials synthesis under non-equilibrium conditions

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