Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 14: Poster Session I

BP 14.20: Poster

Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 10:00–12:30, P3

Enhancing polymerization of prebiotic building blocks by wet-dry cycling — •Almuth Schmid and Dieter Braun — AG Braun, LMU Systems Biophysics, Munich, Germany

Prebiotic chemistry is limited by several factors as concentration or availability of starting materials on the early Earth. On top of that, many artificial and natural activation agents are too complex to have been a part of prebiotic reaction networks. To overcome this problem, amino acids might help reaching ideal environmental conditions, enhancing prebiotic reactions like polymerization of nucleotides. Preliminary experiments demonstrated, that in a wet-dry cycling system rel. yields of GC polymers are boosted up to 70% in the presence of amino acids.

By using wet-dry cycles and including other prebiotic plausible activating agents like volcanic rocks, a better control of the polymerization can be accomplished. Tracking the polymerization on tholeiite basaltic rock with SEM reveals first hints on where and how the polymers interact with the mineral.

Keywords: biophysics; origin of life; prebiotic chemistry; polymerization