Environmental control programs the emergence of distinct functional ensembles from unconstrained chemical reactions
Environmental control programs the emergence of distinct functional ensembles from unconstrained chemical reactions
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1813987116
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发表时间：
2019-03-19
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Cronin, Leroy
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Surman, Andrew J.;Rodriguez-Garcia, Marc;Cronin, Leroy
许多研究生命起源的方法都集中在生物学中发现的分子如何在没有生物过程的情况下从最简单的合理起始材料中产生。另一种方法是将生物化学的出现视为环境随着时间的推移有效地将“原始汤”引向结构、功能和遗传系统的过程。这并不要求今天在生物学中发现的分子最初是被制造出来的，并导致了这样的假设，即环境可以引导化学汤走向秩序，最终走向生命系统。在这里，我们展示了如何不受约束的缩合反应可以通过反应环境的变化，如反应物的添加顺序，以及盐或矿物质的添加来控制。使用组学技术调查所产生的化学合奏，我们证明有不同的，显着的，和可重复的产品混合物之间的差异。此外，我们观察到，这些组成上的差异有后果，表现在明显不同的结构和功能特性。我们表明，环境参数的简单变化导致不同的化学合奏从氨基酸混合物和原始汤模型的分化。我们表明，这种不受约束的反应中出现的合成复杂性并不像经常建议的那样棘手，当通过化学不可知的透镜观察时。一个开放的复杂性的方法可以产生组成，结构和功能的多样性，从固定的简单的起始材料，这表明化学系综的分化可以发生在更广泛的环境中，而不需要生物机械。
Many approaches to the origin of life focus on how the molecules found in biology might be made in the absence of biological processes, from the simplest plausible starting materials. Another approach could be to view the emergence of the chemistry of biology as process whereby the environment effectively directs "primordial soups" toward structure, function, and genetic systems over time. This does not require the molecules found in biology today to be made initially, and leads to the hypothesis that environment can direct chemical soups toward order, and eventually living systems. Herein, we show how unconstrained condensation reactions can be steered by changes in the reaction environment, such as order of reactant addition, and addition of salts or minerals. Using omics techniques to survey the resulting chemical ensembles we demonstrate there are distinct, significant, and reproducible differences between the product mixtures. Furthermore, we observe that these differences in composition have consequences, manifested in clearly different structural and functional properties. We demonstrate that simple variations in environmental parameters lead to differentiation of distinct chemical ensembles from both amino acid mixtures and a primordial soup model. We show that the synthetic complexity emerging from such unconstrained reactions is not as intractable as often suggested, when viewed through a chemically agnostic lens. An open approach to complexity can generate compositional, structural, and functional diversity from fixed sets of simple starting materials, suggesting that differentiation of chemical ensembles can occur in the wider environment without the need for biological machinery.