Various studies have hypothesized that life on Earth may have originated near seafloor, mineral-rich hydrothermal vents. The use of laboratory analogs of these environments, such as chemical gardens, allows the creation of controlled, manipulable systems for studying potential prebiotic chemistry and origins-of-life scenarios on Earth and beyond. In this study, we tested reactions of prebiotically relevant organic anions, pyruvate and glyoxylate, in the presence of chemical gardens under a set of conditions relevant to the early Earth and the Saturnian moon Enceladus. Reactions were run for up to 3 weeks and then analyzed. Prebiotically relevant molecules were synthesized from organics reacted in the presence of chemical gardens under early-Earth-like conditions. As our reactants are readily available in geological settings, it is possible that similar self-organized structures could have played a role in prebiotic chemistry on early Earth or potentially even on other ocean-containing places in the solar system.

中文翻译：

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化学花园作为海洋世界益生元化学的类似物


各种研究假设地球上的生命可能起源于海底、富含矿物质的热液喷口附近。使用这些环境的实验室类似物，例如化学园，可以创建受控的、可操纵的系统，用于研究地球及其他地区潜在的益生元化学和生命起源情景。在这项研究中，我们测试了益生元相关的有机阴离子、丙酮酸和乙醛酸盐在化学花园存在下的一系列与早期地球和土星卫星土卫二相关的条件下的反应。反应运行长达 3 周，然后进行分析。益生元相关分子是在早期类似地球的条件下，由在化学花园存在下反应的有机物合成的。由于我们的反应物在地质环境中很容易获得，因此类似的自组织结构可能在早期地球的益生元化学中发挥作用，甚至可能在太阳系中其他含海洋的地方发挥作用。