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Critical role of spatial information from chiral-asymmetric peptides in the earliest occurrence of life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2016

Hugo I. Cruz-Rosas ,
Francisco Riquelme ,
Mariel Maldonado  and
Germinal Cocho
Hugo I. Cruz-Rosas*
Affiliation:
Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, CP. 04510, D. F., Mexico Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, CP. 04510, D. F., Mexico
Francisco Riquelme
Affiliation:
Paleobiología, Escuela de Estudios Superiores del Jicarero, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Jicarero CP. 62909, Morelos, Mexico
Mariel Maldonado
Affiliation:
Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, CP. 04510, D.F., Mexico
Germinal Cocho*
Affiliation:
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, CP. 04510, D. F., Mexico
*
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The earliest functional living system on Earth should have been able to reproduce an ordered configuration and a self-organization dynamics. It was capable of resisting a random variability in time and space to keep the functionality. Amino acids (AAs) and nucleobases generated from abiotic reactions as seen in laboratory-based experiments have demonstrated that molecular elements for life can be obtained by predictable physicochemical processes. However, a functional, self-organized living system needs complex molecular interactions to endure. In this paper, we address the transference of spatial information on highly enantiopure polymers as a critical condition to support the dynamics in a self-organized biogenic system. Previous scenarios have considered almost exclusively the information encoded in sequences as the suitable source of prebiotic information. But the spatial information transference has been poorly understood thus far. We provide the supporting statements which predict that the ordered configuration in a biogenic system should be significantly influenced by spatial information, instead of being exclusively generated by sequences of polymers. This theoretical approach takes into consideration that the properties of mutation and inheritance did not develop before definition of the structures that allow the management of information. Rather, we postulate that the molecular structures to store and transfer information must exist at first, in order to retain particular functional ‘meaning’, and subsequently, such information can be ‘inherited’ and eventually modified. Thus, the present contribution follows the theory that life was originated from an unstable prebiotic environment that involves the early spatial information transference based on large chiral asymmetry.

Keywords

biochiralitybiogenic systemorigin of lifeself-organizationspatial information
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 28 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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