Sedimentary Minerals, Organic Chemical Transformations, and the Origin of Life

这种“不插手”的化学可以在那些环境中存在的岩石的背景下进一步简化。这种结合现在使我们能够推进与人类提出的最古老的问题之一相关的科学知识：我们从哪里来？此外，这个项目将开发的益生菌化学的简单性使其对学生来说是容易获得的，即使是高中生也是如此。地质环境包括氧化还原中性地壳的围岩，包括硼酸盐蒸发岩矿物，以及年轻地球上的撞击和火山作用产生的玄武岩玻璃。玄武岩玻璃含有脱水的磷酸盐，可以作为组装RNA的催化剂。该项目将完成由三磷酸盐通过撞击玻璃形成的RNA产品的结构分析，将碳水化合物处理与下游核苷合成相结合，探索这种环境产生同手性产品的可能性，并开发相关矿物的沉积和火成岩地质学，供学生研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Our understanding of geological environments on Earth 4.35 billion years ago has advanced to the point where geology can be combined with organic chemistry that does not need careful human control to build models for how the first genetic molecules might have emerged on Earth, and possibly on other rocky planets like Mars. This "hands off" chemistry can be further simplified in the context of rocks present in those environments. This combination now allows us to advance scientific knowledge relevant to one of the oldest questions posed by humankind: Where did we come from? Further, the simplicity of the prebiotic chemistry that this project will develop makes it accessible to students, even those in high school. In addition to advancing the science, this project will deliver kits to those students that will let them participate in the current excitement in geochemistry relevant to this "big question".This geology-chemistry combination supports the "RNA first hypothesis" for the origin of life, which holds that Darwinian evolution emerged based on the abiological formation of ribonucleic acid that served as its first informational molecule. Here, the geological environment comprises intermittently dry, constrained aquifers that receive by rain small carbohydrates stabilized by volcanic sulfur dioxide, reduced nitrogen-containing organic molecules, and other species that were created by UV and electrical discharge in atmospheres that had been reduced by iron fragmented from the cores of impacting bodies. The geological environment includes surrounding rocks from a redox neutral crust, including borate evaporite minerals, as well as basaltic glass generated by the impacts and volcanism on the young Earth. The basaltic glass contains dehydrated phosphates which can serve as a catalyst to assemble RNA. In this single environment, small organics can yield oligomeric RNA 100-200 nucleotides long by a process that initiates with borate-controlled maturation of stabilized carbohydrates, phosphorylation by glass-delivered polyphosphates, reaction of ribose cyclic phosphates with nucleobases to give nucleotides, with borate-moderated phosphorylation yielding nucleoside triphosphates. This project will complete structure analysis of RNA products formed from triphosphates by impact glass, integrate carbohydrate processing with downstream nucleoside synthesis, explore the possibility of this environment producing homochiral products, and develop the sedimentary and igneous geology of relevant minerals for students to work with.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.