𝔖 Bobbio Scriptorium
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From Earth's Primitive Atmosphere to Chiral Peptides – The Origin of Precursors for Life

✍ Scribed by Kristof Plankensteiner; Hannes Reiner; Bernd M. Rode


Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Year
2004
Tongue
English
Weight
138 KB
Volume
1
Category
Article
ISSN
1612-1872

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✦ Synopsis


Abstract

To re‐enact the long way to the origin of life with today's chemical methods, many steps have to be investigated in the light of a primordial scenario deduced from geochemical research. After the formation of our planet and its atmosphere, prebiotic chemical evolution started its course with the formation of the first building blocks for the formation of biomolecules. In the case of proteins, those building blocks were amino acids that had to be formed in the primitive atmosphere, and then had to react to peptides and proteins as the main pillar of first life. In this paper, we describe the processes in the primordial atmosphere according to contemporary geochemical knowledge leading to the synthesis of amino acids until the formation of homochiral peptides, and, thus, show a plausible pathway towards the origin of life.