The Origin of Biomolecules

Abstract

The ease of formation of amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, sugars and a wide variety of other organic compounds under plausible prebiotic conditions suggests that these molecules may have been present in the primitive terrestrial environment. It is likely that collisions of cometary nuclei with the primitive Earth, combined with the contribution from other extraterrestrial bodies such as meteorites and interplanetary dust particles, may have supplemented the primordial broth with extraterrestrial organic molecules. Submarine hydrothermal vents also likely played some role in prebiotic organic evolution. The primordial soup may have been a bewildering organic chemical wonderland, but it likely did not include all the compounds or molecular structures found in modem living systems. Regardless of their ultimate origin, simple organic compounds dissolved in the primitive oceans would need to be concentrated and polymerized by simple physicochemical mechanisms.