HEAT WETTING DRY IS AN EFFECTIVE SYSTEM FORMING PRIMITIVE PEPTIDES

Venue: Edificio Povo 2, via Sommarive nr. 9, Povo (Tn) - Cibio Meeting Room 
 

• Yahoi Oshitai - Researcher and Lab Manager, WPI-ELSI

Heat-Wetting-Dry(HWD) has known to form semi-long oligoglycines from an aqueous glycine solution, up to 19mer with more than 55% yield in our case. Instead of single shot and bulk analyses, time-series and spatial product analyses using X-ray and mass spectrometry were conducted to investigate the reaction mechanism in the dynamic HWD processes. According to the crystal structure, gamma-form glycine is suitable to yield long oligomers with heating. Localization of gamma-glycine prior to alpha-glycine in the solid precipitate indicated Air-Liquid-Solid phase boundary assisted to accumulate and arrange the monomer. Peptide formation and re-dissolvation into small amount of water supplied by the dehydration took place concurrently. Then, oligoglycine crystal having no symmetric center was newly appeared accompanied with water drying up. Sequence shuffling, small neutral losses, and degradation into thermomelanoide were also observed. Modification of oligoglycines in HWD could be a potential way to form precursors of complex peptides containing various chemical groups. Geohydrothermal activities with tidal, wind, and geyser waves are plausible environment involving rhythmical HWD cycles. Dynamic transition of the reaction phases in HWD meets the concept of dynamic kinetic stability model leading molecular evolutions toward the emergence of life.