Ferris James P
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the New York Centre for Studies on the Origins of Life, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2006 Oct 29;361(1474):1777-86; discussion 1786. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2006.1903.
Large deposits of montmorillonite are present on the Earth today and it is believed to have been present at the time of the origin of life and has recently been detected on Mars. It is formed by aqueous weathering of volcanic ash. It catalyses the formation of oligomers of RNA that contain monomer units from 2 to 30-50. Oligomers of this length are formed because this catalyst controls the structure of the oligomers formed and does not generate all possible isomers. Evidence of sequence-, regio- and homochiral selectivity in these oligomers has been obtained. Postulates on the role of selective versus specific catalysts on the origins of life are discussed. An introduction to the origin of life is given with an emphasis on reaction conditions based on the recent data obtained from zircons 4.0-4.5Ga.
如今地球上存在大量蒙脱石矿床,据信在生命起源时它就已存在,并且最近在火星上也被探测到。它是由火山灰的水合风化作用形成的。它催化形成含有2至30 - 50个单体单元的RNA低聚物。形成这种长度的低聚物是因为这种催化剂控制所形成低聚物的结构,并且不会产生所有可能的异构体。已经获得了这些低聚物中序列、区域和同手性选择性的证据。讨论了关于选择性催化剂与特异性催化剂在生命起源中作用的假说。介绍了生命起源,重点是基于从40 - 45亿年前锆石获得的最新数据的反应条件。