Synchronized chaotic targeting and acceleration of surface chemistry in prebiotic hydrothermal microenvironments
Open accessAbstract
Porous mineral formations near subsea alkaline hydrothermal vents embed microenvironments that make them potential hot spots for prebiotic biochemistry. But, synthesis of long-chain macromolecules needed to support higher-order functions in living systems (e.g., polypeptides, proteins, and nucleic acids) cannot occur without enrichment of chemical precursors before initiating polymerization, and identifying a suitable mechanism has become a key unanswered question in the origin of life. Here, we apply simulations and in situ experiments to show how 3D chaotic thermal convection-flows that naturally permeate hydrothermal pore networks-supplies a robust mechanism for focused accumulation at discrete targeted surface sites. This interfacial enrichment is synchronized with bulk homogenization of chemical species, yielding two distinct processes that are seemingly opposed yet synergistically combine to accelerate surface reaction kinetics by several orders of magnitude. Our results suggest that chaotic thermal convection may play a previously unappreciated role in mediating surface-catalyzed synthesis in the prebiotic milieu.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Chaotic advection accelerates surface reaction kinetics in porous mineral substrates characteristic of hydrothermal vent sites.
“Recently [118] have shown numerically and experimentally that chaotic advection indeed accelerates surface reaction kinetics in the porous mineral substrates characteristic of sites near hydrothermal vents.”
From Ecology and Evolution in the RNA World Dynamics and Stability of Prebiotic Replicator Systems (2017) · cites this paper as [118]
Cites
Chaotic Mixer for Microchannels
Stroock, A. D., Dertinger, S. K. W., Ajdari, A., Mezić, I., Stone, H. A., & Whitesides, G. M. (2002) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1066238 · Cited by 3,435 · see citing works
Hydrothermal vents and the origin of life
Martin, W., Baross, J., Kelley, D., & Russell, M. J. (2008) · Nature Reviews Microbiology · doi:10.1038/nrmicro1991 · Cited by 1,608 · see citing works
A Serpentinite-Hosted Ecosystem: The Lost City Hydrothermal Field
Kelley, D. S., Karson, J. A., Früh-Green, G. L., Yoerger, D. R., Shank, T. M., Butterfield, D. A., Hayes, J. M., Schrenk, M. O., Olson, E. J., Proskurowski, G., et al. (2005) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1102556 · Cited by 1,288 · see citing works
Before enzymes and templates: theory of surface metabolism
Wächtershäuser, G. (1988) · Microbiological Reviews · doi:10.1128/mmbr.52.4.452-484.1988 · Cited by 1,242 · see citing works
Eh-pH Diagrams for Geochemistry
Brookins, D. G. (1988) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-73093-1 · Cited by 1,238 · see citing works
An off-axis hydrothermal vent field near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 30° N
Party, T. A.-6. S., Kelley, D. S., Karson, J. A., Blackman, D. K., Früh-Green, G. L., Butterfield, D. A., Lilley, M. D., Olson, E. J., Schrenk, M. O., Roe, K. K., et al. (2001) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35084000 · Cited by 1,168 · see citing works
Permanent storage of carbon dioxide in geological reservoirs by mineral carbonation
Matter, J. M., & Kelemen, P. B. (2009) · Nature Geoscience · doi:10.1038/ngeo683 · Cited by 662 · see citing works
Ongoing hydrothermal activities within Enceladus
Hsu, H. W., Postberg, F., Sekine, Y., Shibuya, T., Kempf, S., Horányi, M., Juhász, A., Altobelli, N., Suzuki, K., Masaki, Y., et al. (2015) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature14262 · Cited by 544 · see citing works
Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems
Baaske, P., Weinert, F. M., Duhr, S., Lemke, K. H., Russell, M. J., & Braun, D. (2007) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0609592104 · Cited by 367 · see citing works
Wiggins, S., & Ottino, J. M. (2004) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences · doi:10.1098/rsta.2003.1356 · Cited by 366 · see citing works
Carbon dioxide sequestration in deep-sea basalt
Goldberg, D. S., Takahashi, T., & Slagle, A. L. (2008) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0804397105 · Cited by 337 · see citing works
Origin of life-facing up to the physical setting
Pace, N. R. (1991) · Cell · doi:10.1016/0092-8674(91)90082-a · Cited by 325 · see citing works
The Drive to Life on Wet and Icy Worlds
Russell, M. J., Barge, L. M., Bhartia, R., Bocanegra, D., Bracher, P. J., Branscomb, E., Kidd, R., McGlynn, S., Meier, D. H., Nitschke, W., et al. (2014) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2013.1110 · Cited by 288 · cited 1× · see citing works
“These attributes, combined with the excess hydrogen’s ability to exothermically reduce carbon dioxide into methane, have fueled interest in elucidating the role of alkaline vents in orchestrating synthesis of prebiotic chemical precursors critical to the origin of life (4, 7).”
BackgroundPrebiotic Synthesis of Polypeptides by Heterogeneous Polycondensation of Amino-acid Adenylates
Paecht‐Horowitz, M., BERGER, J., & Katchalsky, A. (1970) · Nature · doi:10.1038/228636a0 · Cited by 266 · see citing works
Schrenk, M. O., Kelley, D. S., Murdock, S. A., & Baross, J. A. (2004) · Environmental Microbiology · doi:10.1111/j.1462-2920.2004.00650.x · Cited by 230 · see citing works
An origin-of-life reactor to simulate alkaline hydrothermal vents
Herschy, B., Whicher, A., Camprubi, E., Watson, C., Dartnell, L., Ward, J., Evans, J. R. G., & Lane, N. (2014) · Journal of Molecular Evolution · doi:10.1007/s00239-014-9658-4 · Cited by 194 · see citing works
LAHAV, N., & Chang, S. (1976) · Journal of Molecular Evolution · doi:10.1007/bf01739261 · Cited by 181 · see citing works
Expanding roles for diverse physical phenomena during the origin of life
Budin, I., & Szostak, J. W. (2010) · Annual Review of Biophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev.biophys.050708.133753 · Cited by 171 · see citing works
Kreysing, M., Keil, L., Lanzmich, S., & Braun, D. (2015) · Nature Chemistry · doi:10.1038/nchem.2155 · Cited by 169 · see citing works
Escalation of polymerization in a thermal gradient
Mast, C. B., Schink, S., Gerland, U., & Braun, D. (2013) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1303222110 · Cited by 165 · see citing works
Mechanism of Montmorillonite Catalysis in the Formation of RNA Oligomers
Joshi, P. C., Aldersley, M. F., Delano, J. W., & Ferris, J. P. (2009) · Journal of the American Chemical Society · doi:10.1021/ja9036516 · Cited by 129 · see citing works
Churchill, H., Teng, H. H., & Hazen, R. M. (2004) · American Mineralogist · doi:10.2138/am-2004-0716 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Thermal force approach to molecular evolution
Braun, D., & Libchaber, A. J. (2004) · Physical Biology · doi:10.1088/1478-3967/1/1/p01 · Cited by 97 · see citing works
Sievert, S. M., Ziebis, W., Kuever, J., & Sahm, K. (2000) · Microbiology · doi:10.1099/00221287-146-6-1287 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Suchyna, T. M., Besch, S., & Sachs, F. (2004) · Physical Biology · doi:10.1088/1478-3967/1/1/001 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Quantification of chaotic strength and mixing in a micro fluidic system
Kim, H. J., & Beşkök, A. (2007) · Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering · doi:10.1088/0960-1317/17/11/005 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Shaikh, F. A., & Ugaz, V. M. (2006) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0506848103 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Self-citationCatalysis in prebiotic chemistry: application to the synthesis of RNA oligomers
Ferris, J. P., Joshi, P. C., Wang, K.-J., Miyakawa, S., & Huang, W. (2003) · Advances in Space Research · doi:10.1016/j.asr.2003.02.010 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Transport Phenomena in Chaotic Laminar Flows
Sundararajan, P., & Stroock, A. D. (2012) · Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering · doi:10.1146/annurev-chembioeng-062011-081000 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
The Fuel Cell Model of Abiogenesis: A New Approach to Origin-of-Life Simulations
Barge, L. M., Kee, T. P., Doloboff, I. J., Hampton, J. M., Ismail, M. S., Pourkashanian, M. M., Zeytounian, J. L., Baum, M. M., Moss, J. A., Lin, C., et al. (2014) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2014.1140 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Chaotically Accelerated Polymerase Chain Reaction by Microscale Rayleigh–Bénard Convection
Muddu, R., Hassan, Y. A., & Ugaz, V. M. (2011) · Angewandte Chemie International Edition · doi:10.1002/anie.201004217 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Self-citationMicroscale Chaotic Advection Enables Robust Convective DNA Replication
Priye, A., Hassan, Y. A., & Ugaz, V. M. (2013) · Analytical Chemistry · doi:10.1021/ac402611s · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Self-citationMass transfer by natural and forced convection in open cavities
Shin, C. B., & Economou, D. J. (1990) · International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer · doi:10.1016/0017-9310(90)90120-j · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Smartphone-based detection of unlabeled DNA via electrochemical dissolution
Huang, Y.-W., & Ugaz, V. M. (2013) · The Analyst · doi:10.1039/c3an36875k · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Self-citationInterfacial mass transport in steady three-dimensional flows in microchannels
Kirtland, J. D., Siegel, C. R., & Stroock, A. D. (2009) · New Journal of Physics · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/11/7/075028 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Huang, Y., Shaikh, F. A., & Ugaz, V. M. (2011) · Angewandte Chemie International Edition · doi:10.1002/anie.201007377 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Redox and pH gradients drive amino acid synthesis in iron oxyhydroxide mineral systems
Barge, L. M., Flores, E., Baum, M. M., VanderVelde, D. G., & Russell, M. J. (2019) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1812098116 · Cited by 203 · see citing works
Guo, W., Kinghorn, A. B., Zhang, Y., Li, Q., Poonam, A. D., Tanner, J. A., & Shum, H. C. (2021) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23410-7 · Cited by 94 · see citing works
Ecology and Evolution in the RNA World Dynamics and Stability of Prebiotic Replicator Systems
Szilágyi, A., Zachar, I., Scheuring, I., Kun, Á., Könnyű, B., & Czárán, T. (2017) · Life · doi:10.3390/life7040048 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
“Recently [118] have shown numerically and experimentally that chaotic advection indeed accelerates surface reaction kinetics in the porous mineral substrates characteristic of sites near hydrothermal vents.”
BackgroundMaterials Synthesis and Catalysis in Microfluidic Devices: Prebiotic Chemistry in Mineral Membranes
Wang, Q., & Steinbock, O. (2019) · ChemCatChem · doi:10.1002/cctc.201901495 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
From quantum measurement to biology via retrocausality
Matsuno, K. (2017) · Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology · doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.06.012 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Fission of Lipid-Vesicles by Membrane Phase Transitions in Thermal Convection
Kudella, P. W., Preißinger, K., Morasch, M., Dirscherl, C. F., Braun, D., Wixforth, A., & Westerhausen, C. (2019) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-019-55110-0 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Three-Dimensional Analysis of a Simulated Prebiotic Hydrothermal Chimney
Barge, L. M., Jones, J., Pagano, J. J., Martinez, E., & Bescup, J. C. (2020) · ACS Earth and Space Chemistry · doi:10.1021/acsearthspacechem.0c00186 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Probing complexity: thermodynamics and computational mechanics approaches to origins studies
Bartlett, S., & Beckett, P. (2019) · Interface Focus · doi:10.1098/rsfs.2019.0058 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Lingam, M. (2021) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2020.2392 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Intrinsic concentration cycles and high ion fluxes in self-assembled precipitate membranes
Ding, Y., Cartwright, J. H. E., & Cardoso, S. S. S. (2019) · Interface Focus · doi:10.1098/rsfs.2019.0064 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Convective polymerase chain reaction in standard microtubes
Гарафутдинов, Р. Р., Chemeris, D. A., Sakhabutdinova, A. R., Moiseev, K. V., Urmancheev, S. F., Mikhaylenko, C. I., Privalov, L. Y., & Chemeris, A. V. (2022) · Analytical Biochemistry · doi:10.1016/j.ab.2022.114565 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Biochemically Programmable Isothermal PCR
Kim, M., Ravisankar, V., Hassan, Y. A., & Ugaz, V. M. (2024) · Advanced Science · doi:10.1002/advs.202404688 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Self-citationArmstrong, R., Ferracina, S., & Hughes, R. (2019) · Punctum Books · doi:10.21983/p3.0246.1.00 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Micro-Scale Transport Processes for Advanced Healthcare and Point of Care DiagnosticsPreprint
Priye, A. (2017) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/113787 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Self-citationOrigin and Evolution of Life-Related Molecules
Makishima, A. (2019) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-817054-0.00024-2
Randomness and optimality in enhanced DNA ligation with crowding effects
Shiraki, T. Y., Kamei, K., & Maeda, Y. T. (2020) · Physical Review Research · doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.2.013360
Where Can We Find Approaches to Understanding Evolutionary Processes?
Knoflacher, M. (2024) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-662-69423-7_3
Prebiotic Synthesis of L-Homochiral Peptides on Primordial Earth
Zhang, L., Lei, X., Zheng, X., Chen, F., Yu, S., Zhang, M., Guo, X., Cai, H., Zhao, Y., & Ying, J. (2026) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1177/15311074261502316
- Authors
- Priye, A., Yu, Y., Hassan, Y. A., & Ugaz, V. M.
- Affiliations
- Texas A&M University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2017-01-24
- Volume
- 114
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1275-1280
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC5307481
- OpenAlex
- W2581261059
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 7 · 2017: 3
- FWCI
- 1.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- NSF | ENG | Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET-1034002)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Geochemistry and Elemental Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Keywords
- origin of life, prebiotic chemistry, hydrothermal vents, surface reaction kinetics, alkaline hydrothermal vents, polymerization, in situ experiments
- MeSH terms
- Origin of Life, Adsorption, Amino Acids, Hot Temperature, Minerals, Models, Theoretical, Hydrothermal Vents
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
