Clays and the Origin of Life
A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Origin of Life".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2020) | Viewed by 9682
Special Issue Editor
Interests: clay; the origin life; gene regulation; gene expression; genomics; bioinformatics and computational biology; molecular biology; evolution; DNA; biochemistry; proteins; RNA
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are going to explore the Clay world and the Origin of Life in this Special Issue.
Freeman Dyson in his book on the Origins of Life pointed out that there were three main theories of life, labelled by their most prominent advocates: Oparin (peptides), Eigen (RNA), and Cairns-Smith (Clays). The first two theories are dependent on a soup of monomers, e.g., amino acids and nucleotides. The Clay model did not; therefore, Clays evolved up to Metabolism.
In the modern debate between Metabolism first versus the RNA world, the origin and evolution of Metabolism is argued to clearly precede the appearance of the RNA world.
This means that no soup was necessary in the Clay world. It was on the surfaces of iron minerals (Clays) where the fixation of CO2 and N2 occurred. Resulting in carboxylic acids, amino acids, sugars and bases etc.
It is on the carbonaceous chondrites that the coupling between the synthesis of iron-rich clays and the synthesis of amino acids, monocarboxylic acids, and dicarboxylic acids took place. This coupling has been recently been tested experimentally, when dicarboxylic acids catalyzed clay formation from gels.
The evolution of metabolism requires a memory system and that was provided by the replicating iron-rich clays. These iron-rich clays have been observed on Mars.
Clays are excellent catalysts in Organic Chemistry and have been extensively studied. They have been studied in the polymerization of RNA and peptides. The redox reactions on the surface of iron-rich clays have not been studied (Laszlo, P. Chemical reactions on clays. Science 1987, 235, 1473).
Clays can replicate:
Formation of clay minerals in soils from soluble and colloidal products is believed to be catalyzed by the other aluminosilicate minerals of the soil through the adsorption of these products on their surfaces. The surfaces of the existing clay minerals or of primary minerals may be considered as nuclei that initiate the crystallization process. Crystal lattice growth may be said to begin when only a few silica tetrahedrons are adsorbed on an OH surface of a kaolinite particle or a few molecules of alumina are adsorbed on an oxygen surface of a mica; a montmorin; or a kaolin particle. These adsorbed molecules would tend to become oriented in a pattern similar or complementary to that of the substrate and become condensed through dehydration into two-dimensional sheets of linked tetrahedrons or octahedrons.
Barshad, I. Chapter on Soil Development. Chemistry of Soils; Baer, F.E. Ed.; Reinhold Publishing Corporation: New York, N.Y., USA, 1955; p31.
In summary, Clays are catalysts and can replicate. They evolved up to Metabolism and thus the Origin of Life began in the Clay world and not in the RNA world. The origin of the Genetic Code was a later development.
This Special Issue is an update on Clays and the Origin of Life.
In 1982, with the help of John Lewis, I founded the Gordon Conference on the Origins of Life. It was followed by a meeting in Glasgow that resulted in the book that I edited with Cairns-Smith: Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life; Cairns-Smith, A.G., Hartman, H. Eds.; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 1986.
More recent publications include:
Hartman, H. From clay to the code of life. In Sidney Brenner’s 10-on-10: The Chronicles of Evolution; Wildtype Books: Singapore, 2018.
Hartman, H.; Smith, T.F. Origin of the Genetic Code is Found at the Transition between a Thioester World of Peptides and the Phosphoester World of Polynucleotides. Life 2019, 9, 69.
Dr. Hyman Hartman
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- clays
- metabolism
- clays and the origin of life
