Let’s Make a Ribonucleotide: RNA World as the First Molecular ‘Ecosystem’
When
Where
Dr. Zach Adam
Associate Staff Scientist
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
One-pot synthesis of ribonucleotide precursors has been sought as part of a broad effort to explore the plausibility of RNA World prebiotic theories. In this talk, we will discuss an array of simple radiolysis reactions that give rise to RNA precursors via gamma radiolysis of aqueous cyanide. The full extent of the array is predicated upon ‘switching’: the presence or absence of simple dissolved species such as PO4, NaCl or NH3 leads to different RNA precursors. Zooming out, the topological attributes of the chemical network that links this array to a natural environment bears similar attributes to biological systems such as enzyme-enzyme or ecological interaction networks. We will conclude by considering whether this constitutes evidence that the origins of life did not represent a process of de novo chemical complexification, but rather a distillation of one particular chemical interaction system from a preceding, equivalently (perhaps more so) complex physicochemical system.