Helmholtz-Zentrum Muenchen-German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute for Ecological Chemistry, Ingolstaedter Landstrasse 1, D-85764 Oberschleissheim, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Feb 16;107(7):2763-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912157107.
Numerous descriptions of organic molecules present in the Murchison meteorite have improved our understanding of the early interstellar chemistry that operated at or just before the birth of our solar system. However, all molecular analyses were so far targeted toward selected classes of compounds with a particular emphasis on biologically active components in the context of prebiotic chemistry. Here we demonstrate that a nontargeted ultrahigh-resolution molecular analysis of the solvent-accessible organic fraction of Murchison extracted under mild conditions allows one to extend its indigenous chemical diversity to tens of thousands of different molecular compositions and likely millions of diverse structures. This molecular complexity, which provides hints on heteroatoms chronological assembly, suggests that the extraterrestrial chemodiversity is high compared to terrestrial relevant biological- and biogeochemical-driven chemical space.
众多在默奇森陨石中存在的有机分子的描述，增进了我们对于早期星际化学的理解，而早期星际化学发生在我们太阳系诞生之前或刚刚诞生之时。然而，到目前为止，所有的分子分析都针对特定的化合物类别，特别强调在原始生物化学背景下具有生物活性的成分。在这里，我们证明了在温和条件下提取的默奇森陨石可溶有机部分的非靶向超高分辨率分子分析，能够将其本土化学多样性扩展到成千上万种不同的分子组成，甚至可能有上百万种不同的结构。这种分子复杂性提示了杂原子的时间顺序组装，这表明与地球相关的生物和生物地球化学驱动的化学空间相比，外星的化学多样性是很高的。
