Phys. Chem., Moscow, Russia; 2Obukhov Inst. Atmosph. Phys., Moscow, Russia One of the first scientific hypotheses of living matter origination was proposed by Oparin (1952). selleck It was picked up and developed by Urey, Miller and their colleagues (e.g., Miller and Urey, 1959). Later, the idea about primary development of a RNA world and its subsequent reformation into present DNA/RNA world was developed. Important contributions to these ideas were made by Orgel, Kauffman, Joyce and others (e.g., Miller and Orgel, 1974; Kauffman, 1993; Joyce, 1989). At present, these ideas and the idea of Panspermia are widely distributed. We develop the original Life
Origination Hydrate click here hypothesis (LOH-hypothesis) (Ostrovskii and Kadyshevich, 2002; 2006; 2007) assuming repeated formation of living-matter simplest elements (LMSE) within honeycomb structures of hydrocarbon-hydrates from CH4 (or other hydrocarbon), niter, and phosphate under the Earth’s surface or seabed in the following sequence: niter diffusion into hydrate structure → formation of N-bases and riboses within large structural cavities → phosphate diffusion from outside into small structural cavities → formation of DNA- (RNA-) selleck screening library like molecules through polymerization
→ melting of the system and water-organic-soup formation → formation of amino-acids and simplest organelles in the soup → self-replication of nucleic acids and concentrating of the soup → formation of cells etc. The LOH-hypothesis is supplemented with the sub-hypothesis of formation of deposits of hydrates of CH4 and other hydrocarbons. The mechanisms for each step are proposed and discussed. The LOH-hypothesis
was initiated by results of our calorimetric studies of water sorption–desorption processes in systems modelling interaction between water and biologically-active PLEKHM2 substances, by surprising coincidence between the sizes of hydrate structural cavities and N-bases, riboses, and phosphates, and by analysis of available works relating to the living-matter-origination problem. Thermodynamic calculations supporting the LOH-hypothesis, a new supposition allowing for understanding the homochirality of nucleic acids, a plan of a PC experiment examining this supposition, and the scheme for a laboratory experiment capable of testing the LOH-hypothesis are presented. The simplicity of the acts of Nature is an attribute of our hypothesis: the entire set of the necessary LMSE and of protocells formed simultaneously and in the same place. Phenomena counting in favour of our hypothesis are described (e.g., Schippers et al., 2005). The LOH-hypothesis allows for answering the following questions.