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.

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（例如化学花园）可以创建受控、可操作的系统，用于研究地球及其他地区潜在的生命起源化学和生命起源场景。在这项研究中，我们在化学花园的存在下，在一系列与早期地球和土星卫星土卫二相关的条件下，测试了与生命起源相关的有机阴离子、丙酮酸和乙醛酸的反应。反应运行长达 3 周，然后进行分析。与生命起源相关的分子是由在类似早期地球的条件下化学花园中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甚至太阳系其他有海洋的地方的生命起源化学中发挥了作用。