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The rocky road to biomolecules

A natural chemical reaction that occurs below the sea floor makes the amino acid tryptophan without biological input. This finding reveals a process that might have helped life on Earth to begin.
  1. John A. Baross

    1. John A. Baross is in the School of Oceanography and the Astrobiology Program, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.

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Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice ponders which of these two will eventually cause life on Earth to cease. Conversely, scientists have long been interested in whether life on this planet originated in hot or cold conditions. Did life arise in a hot volcanic environment1,2 or, as Charles Darwin suggested in a letter (see go.nature.com/2q8w3n5), in “some warm little pond”? Might we need to invoke a global setting that includes ice3 or would an ocean-floor setting suffice1–5? Writing in Nature, Ménez et al.6 report an analysis of rocky material below the ocean floor at sites called serpentinizing hydrothermal vents, which are hot springs that discharge alkaline, gas-rich water. The authors provide evidence that a chemical reaction occurs there that could have set the stage for life to begin — the generation of an amino acid by a process that is not biologically mediated.

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Nature 564, 42-43 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07262-8

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