1 Mathematical Sciences Institute and Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
2 School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
Astrobiology. 2019 May;19(5):675-684. doi: 10.1089/ast.2018.1886. Epub 2019 Feb 1.
The hydrogen peroxide (HP) crucible hypothesis proposed here holds that life began in a localized environment on Earth that was perfused with a flow of hydrogen peroxide from a sustained external source, which powered and mediated molecular evolution and the protocellular RNA world. In this article, we consolidate and review recent evidence, both circumstantial and tested in simulation in our work and in the laboratory in others' work, for its multiple roles in the evolution of the first living systems: (1) it provides a periodic power source as the thiosulfate-hydrogen peroxide (THP) redox oscillator, (2) it may act as an agent of molecular change and evolution and mediator of homochirality, and (3) the THP oscillator, subject to Brownian input perturbations, produces a weighted distribution of output thermal fluctuations that favor polymerization and chemical diversification over chemical degradation and simplification. The hypothesis can help to clarify the hero and villain roles of hydrogen peroxide in cell function, and on the singularity of life: of necessity, life evolved early an armory of catalases, the continuing, and all-pervasive presence of which prevents hydrogen peroxide from accumulating anywhere in sufficient quantities to host a second origin. The HP crucible hypothesis is radical, but based on well-known chemistry and physics, it is eminently testable in the laboratory, and many of our simulations provide recipes for such experiments.
这里提出的过氧化氢（HP）坩埚假说认为，生命始于地球上一个局部环境，该环境中持续有外部来源的过氧化氢流灌注，为分子进化和原始 RNA 世界提供动力和介导。在本文中，我们整合并回顾了最近的证据，包括我们的工作中的间接证据和模拟检验以及其他人实验室中的检验，这些证据表明其在最初生命系统的进化中具有多种作用：（1）它作为硫代硫酸盐-过氧化氢（THP）氧化还原振荡器提供周期性的动力源；（2）它可能作为分子变化和进化的代理以及手性的介体；（3）THP 振荡器受到布朗输入扰动的影响，产生有利于聚合和化学多样化而不是化学降解和简化的输出热波动的加权分布。该假说有助于阐明过氧化氢在细胞功能中的英雄和反派角色，以及生命奇点：生命必然很早就进化出了一系列的过氧化氢酶，这些酶的持续存在和无处不在，阻止了过氧化氢在任何地方积累到足以容纳第二次起源的足够数量。HP 坩埚假说很激进，但基于众所周知的化学和物理知识，它在实验室中具有很强的可测试性，我们的许多模拟为这些实验提供了方案。
