A Possible Prebiotic Origin on Volcanic Islands of Oligopyrrole-Type Photopigments and Electron Transfer Cofactors
| العنوان: | A Possible Prebiotic Origin on Volcanic Islands of Oligopyrrole-Type Photopigments and Electron Transfer Cofactors |
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| المؤلفون: | Henry Strasdeit, Stefan Fox |
| المصدر: | Astrobiology. 13:578-595 |
| بيانات النشر: | Mary Ann Liebert Inc, 2013. |
| سنة النشر: | 2013 |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | chemistry.chemical_classification, food.ingredient, Sea salt, Hydrochloric acid, Pigments, Biological, Volcanic Eruptions, Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous), Amino acid, Electron Transport, Metal, chemistry.chemical_compound, Electron transfer, Prebiotics, Monomer, food, chemistry, Space and Planetary Science, visual_art, Polymer chemistry, visual_art.visual_art_medium, Organic chemistry, Pyrroles, Seawater, Pyrrole |
| الوصف: | Tetrapyrroles are essential to basic biochemical processes such as electron transfer and photosynthesis. However, it is not known whether these evolutionary old molecules have a prebiotic origin. We have serendipitously obtained pyrroles, which are the corresponding monomers, in laboratory experiments that simulated the interaction of amino acid-containing seawater with molten lava. The thermal pyrrole formation from amino acids, which so far has only been reported for special cases, can be explained by the observation that the amino acids become metal bonded, for example in (CaCl2)3(Hala)2·6H2O (Hala=DL-alanine), when the seawater evaporates. At a few hundred degrees Celsius, sea salt crusts also release hydrochloric acid (HCl). On primordial volcanic islands, the volatile pyrroles and HCl must have condensed at cooler locations, for example, in rock pools. There, pyrrole oligomerization may have occurred. To study this possibility, we added formaldehyde and nitrite, two species for which plausible prebiotic sources are known, to 2,4-diethylpyrrole and HCl. We found that even at high dilution conjugated (oxidized) oligomers, including octaethylporphyrin and other cyclic and open-chain tetrapyrroles, were formed. All experiments were conducted under rigorously oxygen-free conditions. Our results suggest that primitive versions of present-day biological cofactors such as chlorophylls, bilins, and heme were spontaneously abiotically synthesized on primordial volcanic islands and thus may have been available to the first protocells. |
| تدمد: | 1557-8070 1531-1074 |
| URL الوصول: | https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_dedup___::431b42677502b5a3a354fd7be0e7aca4 https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2012.0934 |
| رقم الأكسشن: | edsair.doi.dedup.....431b42677502b5a3a354fd7be0e7aca4 |
| قاعدة البيانات: | OpenAIRE |
| تدمد: | 15578070 15311074 |
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