The Research Of Hydrothermal Biochemistry Based On The C-O-P Bonds

"How did life arise?" It is a very complex and interesting problem. Human hasbeen keeping on studying on this problem for thousands of years. The research of theorigin of life involves a process from non-living to the emergence of primitive lifewhich occurred during a very broad time and space billions of years ago. And itcovers cross physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, planetary science and otherdisciplines. Scientists have done great jobs and have made considerable progress inthis research field. These studies can not only help people to understand the origin oflife, cell and other issues, but also guide people to make synthetic cells, organs or lifeaccording to their need. The goal of controlling, manufacturing and changing of lifewould be realized.Recently, submarine hot springs are attracting increased attention, and a varietyof evidences show that life on the earth may originate from the submarinehydrothermal vents. In the primitive earth, the movement of the earth is very frequentand there are a lot of volcanic vents in the submarine. Such vents are attractive sitesfor the origin of life, which has sufficient material and energy sources around thevents. Also minerals in the submarine maybe play important roles in the course of theorigin of life. Scientists have done much and deep study on chemical evolution underhydrothermal condition to simulate the process of the origin of life on the primitive earth.In the present study, we simulate the reaction under the primitive earthhydrothermal environment, in order to understand the prebiotic synthese of thephosphate compouds and their effects in the process of chemical evolution. Weinvestigate the formation of C-O-P bonds under hydrothermal condition, whichconfirms the feasibility of phosphorylation in hydrothermal environments andprovides raw material for the origin of life. Then we discuss the reactions withdifferent phosphate sourses. We also investigate the important role of phosphatecompounds in the chemical evolution, which offers a clue of the energy source for theorigin of life.1. We studied the phosphorylation reaction of glycerol under hydrothermalconditions. Glycerol phosphate is one of the most simple biological phosphate estersbut plays a crucial role in the biological world. The study on the synthesis of glycerolphosphate is helpful to understand that how phosphorus was incorporated into thebiomolecules. Since the minerals in the submarine play important roles in the originof life, the effect of minerals was also taken into account. The reaction was under asimulated prebiotic hydrothermal environment, and ammonium dihydrogen phosphatewas chosen as the phosphate source. The products were glycerol-2-phosphate andsn-glycerol-1(3)-phosphate, and the best yield of the products was1.15%in mole.Sn-glycerol-3-phosphate is known to be the framework of phospholipidmolecules. So our products would be important synthetic precursors to the formationof phospholipids. This may imply that hydrothermal environments on the primitiveearth could have provided an evolutionary sieve of first cellular organism.2. Most of the phosphates on early Earth would have been in the form ofwater-insoluble apatite, and the reactivity is quite sluggish. Yamagata et. al.demonstrated that water-soluble polyphosphates could be produced through thevolcanic activities via partial hydrolysis of P4O10. In addition trimetaphosphate（P3O93-）produced from volcanos was used as phosphorylation reagent in manyreactions. So we chose polyphosphate as phosphate source to study the hydrothermalreaction of glycerol. We got the same products glycerol phosphates. But since the higher activity of polyphosphates, the yields of the products increased to more than2%in mole. The effects of various factors on the reaction and a mechanism of thephosphorylation reaction accelerated by magnesium ion were also studied.Experimental evidence for the role of polyphosphate in the origin of life was providedby our research.3. We did a preliminary study on the role of phosphate compounds in the originof life from two aspects. First, sn-glycerol-3-phosphate was used as the reactant, andit reacted with ammonium palmitate under the prebiotic hydrothermal conditions.Phosphatidic acid was successfully synthesized in the presence of montmorillonite.Also, the self-assembly reaction of the reaction product was also studied and it wasfound that the reaction product was well capable of forming cell like stable vesicles.We also studied the effect of polyphosphates in the polymerization of amino acid.Since the polymerization reaction is unfavourable in thermodynamics, it needs tointroduce energy. The addition of trimetaphosphate could offer the energy of thereaction. The result indicates that the yield of peptide was increased with thecooperation of trimetaphosphate.In summary, we explore the prebiotic formation of C-O-P bonds and the role ofphosphate compounds in the origin of life. Our research provides experimentalevidences and basis for the further study of the origin of life. We must realize that theorigin of life is aworldwide problem. If we want to explain the essence of lifereasonably, there still are lots of questions need to further explore and solve.