4:20 PM - 4:35 PM
[MIS03-09] Prebiotic phosphorylation under deep-sea supercritical CO2-water two-phase environment
Keywords:prebiotic chemistry, phosphorylation, nucleotides, deep-sea, supercritical carbon dioxide, hydrothermal reactor
Phosphorylation reaction leading to prebiotic nucleotide synthesis has been so far reported from conditions simulating wet-dry cycle near terrestrial hot springs with atmosphere and water. The advantage of having a two-phase environment is that water can escape from the aqueous phase to the atmosphere, which result in the condensation of various organic molecules. On the other hand, in the deep-sea environment, it is considered that molecules will diffuse and also undergo hydrolysis due to the presence of abundant water. However, natural CO2 fluid have been discovered near deep-sea hydrothermal vents and the model shows that subsurface pool of liquid and supercritical CO2 exists. Currently supercritical CO2 (scCO2) is mainly used in the industry as a green solvent to dissolve various hydrophobic molecules. Also aqueous phase adjacent to the CO2 fluid become highly acidic and dissolves various inorganic ions such as phosphates. Thus it led us to further investigate the possibility of nucleotide synthesis via phosphorylation reaction in the water-supercritical CO2 two phase environment. Here, we used an autoclave to perform nucleoside phosphorylation using different nucleoside (adenosine, uridine, cytidine, or guanosine), phosphate sources (sodium phosphate and hydroxyapatite) and chemicals (urea, formic acid, etc) under various reaction time (24-120 hours) and temperatures (25-140℃). Phosphorylation reaction has been observed from conditions using phosphate and hydroxyapatite source but with the presence of urea and above certain temperature. We look forward to share our latest results and would like to discuss further on how scCO2/water two-phase system is advantageous for prebiotic organic phosphorylation on Earth’s early ocean.