Intrinsic disorder, extraterrestrial peptides, and prebiotic life on the earth.

J Biomol Struct Dyn

Department of Molecular Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA.

Published: July 2023

AI Article Synopsis

  • The synthesis of homo-polymeric oligopeptides like polyglycine has been found to potentially occur in conditions similar to those of early Earth and astrophysical environments, suggesting possibilities for extraterrestrial life.
  • This research supports the idea that simple polypeptides might have contributed to the origin of life on Earth, possibly arriving from outer space.
  • Bioinformatics studies indicate that these homo-polymeric peptides could be intrinsically disordered, hinting at their crucial role in the spontaneous emergence of life through autocatalytic processes in self-organizing systems over time.

Article Abstract

The discovery of mechanisms for the synthesis of homo-polymeric oligopeptides, such as polyglycine under conditions relevant to the astrophysical environment as well as in scenarios resembling primordial conditions that prevailed soon after Earth was formed, raises hopes in the search of extraterrestrial life. It also raises the possibility of extraterrestrial contribution to origin of life on Earth in the form of simple polypeptides. Bioinformatics analyses strongly predict such homo-polymeric peptides to be intrinsically disordered underscoring the potential involvement of IDPs in the origin of life which, even in its simplest form, could emerge spontaneously by autocatalysis of the primordial IDPs in self-organizing systems that evolved over time following natural selection.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07391102.2022.2088619DOI Listing

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