The water droplets contain a “secret ingredient” that may be at the origin of life on Earth, a discovery that scientists at Purdue University in the United States admit could contribute to the development of new medicines.
“This is the first demonstration that primordial molecules, simple amino acids, spontaneously form peptides, the building blocks of life, in droplets of pure water,” said Graham Cooks, professor of analytical chemistry in the Purdue College of Science. .
According to the chemist, this study, published today in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, made it possible to discover “essentially the chemistry behind the origin of life”, something that has intrigued scientists for decades.
According to US university research, water-based chemistry “may also lead to faster development of drugs to treat humanity’s most debilitating diseases.”
According to the study, amino acids can react and aggregate to form peptides, the “building blocks of proteins and, eventually, of life.”
“Interestingly, the process requires the loss of a water molecule, which seems highly unlikely in a humid, aqueous, or oceanic environment. For life to form, it needed water, but it also needed space away from water.” conclusions of the study
Research by Graham Cooks’ team, an expert in mass spectrometry and terrestrial chemistry, has provided an answer to this enigma, since “water does not wet everywhere”.
“On coastlines, where a drop of water meets the atmosphere, incredibly fast reactions can occur, converting abiotic amino acids into the building blocks of life. As water splashes down a slope, they were fertile landscapes for the possible evolution of the life,” says the study.
The chemists involved in this research spent more than 10 years using mass spectrometers to study chemical reactions in water droplets.
Understanding how amino acids became proteins, and eventually life forms, allows us to revolutionize scientific understanding of chemical synthesis, a process that “can now help synthetic chemists speed up reactions critical to the discovery and development of new medications and treatments for diseases. “said the American institution.
Source: TSF
