Mineral surface chemistry control for origin of prebiotic peptides

The evolution of the surface of the mineral schreibersite in prebiotic chemistry.

We present a study of the reactions of the meteoritic mineral schreibersite (Fe,Ni)3P, focusing primarily on surface chemistry and prebiotic phosphorylation. In this work, a synthetic analogue of the mineral was synthesized by mixing stoichiometric proportions of elemental iron, nickel and phosphorus and heating in a tube furnace at 820 °C for approximately 235 hours under argon or under vacuum...

PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY Borate Minerals and Origin of the RNAWorld

The RNA World is generally thought to have been an important link between purely prebiotic (>3.7 Ga) chemistry and modern DNA/protein biochemistry. One concern about the RNAWorld hypothesis is the geochemical stability of ribose, the sugar moiety of RNA. Prebiotic stabilization of ribose by solutions associated with borate minerals, notably colemanite, ulexite, and kernite, has been proposed as...

Prebiotic chemistry and the origin of the RNA world.

The demonstration that ribosomal peptide synthesis is a ribozyme-catalyzed reaction makes it almost certain that there was once an RNA World. The central problem for origin-of-life studies, therefore, is to understand how a protein-free RNA World became established on the primitive Earth. We first review the literature on the prebiotic synthesis of the nucleotides, the nonenzymatic synthesis an...

Mineral Surface Chemistry and Nanoparticle-aggregation Control Membrane Self-Assembly

The self-assembly of lipid bilayer membranes to enclose functional biomolecules, thus defining a "protocell," was a seminal moment in the emergence of life on Earth and likely occurred at the micro-environment of the mineral-water interface. Mineral-lipid interactions are also relevant in biomedical, industrial and technological processes. Yet, no structure-activity relationships (SARs) have be...

Prebiotic chemistry themed issue