ReviewJournal of molecular evolution2016
Natural pH Gradients in Hydrothermal Alkali Vents Were Unlikely to Have Played a Role in the Origin of Life.
Review in Journal of molecular evolution, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Nanometric and Hydrophobic Green Rust Minerals upon Exposure to Amino Acids and Nickel as Prerequisites for a Primitive Chemiosmosis.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The Winding Road from Origin to Emergence (of Life).Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Template-Directed Replication and Chiral Resolution during Wet-Dry Cycling in Hydrothermal Pools.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- On the potential roles of phosphorus in the early evolution of energy metabolism.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Review
- The Origin(s) of Cell(s): Pre-Darwinian Evolution from FUCAs to LUCA : To Carl Woese (1928-2012), for his Conceptual Breakthrough of Cellular Evolution.Journal of molecular evolution · 2021Article
- Experimental Approaches for Testing the Hypothesis of the Emergence of Life at Submarine Alkaline Vents.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- 'Whole Organism', Systems Biology, and Top-Down Criteria for Evaluating Scenarios for the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- The "Water Problem"(Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- The Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life.Astrobiology · 2020Review
- Possible mechanisms of COInterface focus · 2019Article
- Microfluidic Reactors for Carbon Fixation under Ambient-Pressure Alkaline-Hydrothermal-Vent Conditions.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Article
- Origin of Life's Building Blocks in Carbon- and Nitrogen-Rich Surface Hydrothermal Vents.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Article
- Possible Emergence of Sequence Specific RNA Aminoacylation via Peptide Intermediary to Initiate Darwinian Evolution and Code Through Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Article
- Serpentinization: Connecting Geochemistry, Ancient Metabolism and Industrial Hydrogenation.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Review
- Is pre-Darwinian evolution plausible?Biology direct · 2018Review
- In the Beginning was a Mutualism - On the Origin of Translation.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2018Article
- Environmental Adaptation from the Origin of Life to the Last Universal Common Ancestor.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2018Article
- A Hydrothermal-Sedimentary Context for the Origin of Life.Astrobiology · 2018Article
- Toy trains, loaded dice and the origin of life: dimerization on mineral surfaces under periodic drive with Gaussian inputs.Royal Society open science · 2017Article
- Ancient Living Organisms Escaping from, or Imprisoned in, the Vents?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The hypothesis that a natural pH gradient across inorganic membranes lying between the ocean and fluid issuing from hydrothermal alkali vents provided energy to drive chemical reactions during the origin of life has an attractive parallel with chemiosmotic ATP synthesis in present-day organisms. However, arguments raised in this review suggest that such natural pH gradients are unlikely to have played a part in life's origin. There is as yet no evidence for thin inorganic membranes holding sharp pH gradients in modern hydrothermal alkali vents at Lost City near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Proposed models of non-protein forms of the H(+)-pyrophosphate synthase that could have functioned as a molecular machine utilizing the energy of a natural pH gradient are unsatisfactory. Some hypothetical designs of non-protein motors utilizing a natural pH gradient to drive redox reactions are plausible but complex, and such motors are deemed unlikely to have assembled by chance in prebiotic times. Small molecular motors comprising a few hundred atoms would have been unable to function in the relatively thick (>1 μm) inorganic membranes that have hitherto been used as descriptive models for the natural pH gradient hypothesis. Alternative hypotheses for the evolution of chemiosmotic systems following the emergence of error-prone gene replication and translation are more likely to be correct.
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