Plausibility of the Formose Reaction in Alkaline Hydrothermal Vent Environments
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Plausibility of the Formose Reaction in Alkaline Hydrothermal Vent Environments Arthur Omran 1 Received: 11 April 2020 / Accepted: 22 June 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
Prebiotic processes required a reliable source of free energy and complex chemical mixtures that may have included sugars. The formose reaction is a potential source of those sugars. At moderate to elevated temperature and pH ranges, these sugars rapidly decay. Here it is shown that CaCO3-based chemical gardens catalyze the formose reaction to produce glucose, ribose, and other monosaccharides. These thin inorganic membranes are explored as analogs of hydrothermal vent materials—a possible place for the origin of life—and similarly exposed to very steep pH gradients. Supported by simulations of a simple reaction-diffusion model, this study shows that such gradients allow for the dynamic accumulation of sugars in specific layers of the thin membrane, effectively protecting formose sugar yields. Therefore, the formose reaction may be a plausible prebiotic reaction in alkaline hydrothermal vent environments, possibly setting the stage for an RNA world. Keywords Hydrothermal Vent Theory . Formose Reaction . Prebiotic Chemistry . Astrobiology . Origins of Life . Chemical Garden . Heterogenous Catalysis . Chemical Evolution . RNA World
Introduction A particularly interesting setting to consider for the origins of life are hydrothermal vents, both here on Earth and among some of the icy moons of the outer solar system (Brandscom et al. 2017, Ruiz-Mirazo et al. 2014; Martin et al. 2008; Martin and Russell 2007; Russell et al. 2014). These geologically diverse environments are energetically and minerally rich, and exhibit pH and thermal gradients that could be of great use to prebiotic chemistry (Martin Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11084-02009599-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Arthur Omran [email protected]; [email protected]
1
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390, USA
A. Omran
and Russell 2007; Russell et al. 2014; Möller et al. 2017). Among the chemical species needed for the emergence of life, especially under the hypothesis of an RNA world, sugars play an important part in life because they are essential for the formation of certain biopolymers and the control of energy flow (Horecker 1976; Orgel 2004). In this context, the formose reaction gained prominence because it reacts formaldehyde (CH2O) generating glycolaldehyde in a slow induction step and then in a much quicker phase produces a multitude of higher molecular weight sugars autocatalytically (Breslow 1959; Butlerow 1861). The formose reaction is catalyzed by calcium hydroxide classically, and other divalent metal ions as well (Breslow 1959; Butlerow 1861; Ricardo et al. 2004; Weiss et al. 1970). The underlying mechanism involves aldol reactions, reverse aldol reactions, and aldose-ketose isomerization
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