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TRR 235:  Emergence of Life: exploring mechanisms with cross-disciplinary experiments

Subject Area Physics
Biology
Chemistry
Geosciences
Term from 2018 to 2023
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 364653263
 
Final Report Year 2023

Final Report Abstract

The emergence of life has been one of the long-lasting scientific and philosophical questions for humankind. Today, life is abundant around us - plants, microbes, larger animals - but this was not the case on early Earth. What processes triggered the emergence of life? We set out with a broad set of experimental questions. What were the conditions on early Earth? Which chemicals could serve as precursors for living systems on Earth and other planets? How did the first genes develop? How could Darwinian evolution emerge? What was the first metabolism? How could life exist robustly? The CRC/TR 235 used bottom-up laboratory experiments combining multiple traditionally standalone disciplines - astrophysics, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, geosciences and theory - and expertise in studying the nanoscience of replicating molecules, the early astrochemistry, the systems chemistry of cooperative synthesis, the physics of non-equilibrium systems, the biochemistry of primitive metabolisms and the geochemistry and -physics of early Earth. Highly unexpected results were achieved by the collaborations. Freshly formed hydrothermal vents, solid outflow structures formed from geological fluids, were recreated in lab experiments and shown to accumulate RNA, the first molecule of life. Phosphate, a core component of RNA, could be leached and accumulated from igneous rocks with the pH gradients of a thermal gradient, a process deemed impossible before. Organocatalysts, molecules that act as catalysts as they enter and leave a reaction unchanged, were found to self-select their own polymerization, showing chemical evolution. Complex hydrothermal metabolic reactions could be followed by high-resolution mass spectrometry. The copying of RNA with in situ activation was studied experimentally and results matched the theoretical calculations. Water at the interface to CO2, if heated, selected nucleic acids by length. This lead to a replication-selection cycle, triggering a fast sequence evolution. The same setting could assemble ribozymes from short strands of RNA, creating a role model for the assembly of the ribosome, the starting molecule of the genetic code. Patterns of amino-acid-RNA interactions, important for defining the genetic code was found by sequencing. Protocells were divided by freeze-thaw cycles, coupling replication with cell division. Coacervates, created by the same chemistry that links nucleotides in RNA, selected molecules by their local physical properties. Finally, the consortium organized an exhibition “Simple, complex, alive” at the Deutsches Museum. We pushed the cross-disciplinary boundaries of the field. We narrowed down experimental strategies to recreate the emergence of life in the lab. We now see much clearly how non-equilibrium processes on the early Earth could trigger the powerful principle of Darwinian evolution at the molecular level. The topic will be followed up by the groups of the CRC through different future funding programs.

Link to the final report

https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/17481

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