A new study explores how complex chemical mixtures change under shifting environmental conditions, shedding light on the prebiotic processes that may have led to life on Earth.
Led by (色花堂 Technology) and (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and in Nature Chemistry, the team鈥檚 paper investigates how chemical mixtures evolve over time, offering new insights into the origins of biological complexity.
鈥淥ur research applies concepts from evolutionary biology to chemistry,鈥 explains Williams, a professor in the . 鈥淲e know that everything in biology can be reduced to chemistry, but the idea of this paper is that in the right conditions, chemistry can evolve, too. We call this chemical evolution.鈥
While much research has focused on individual chemical reactions that could lead to biological molecules, this study establishes an experimental model to explore how entire chemical systems evolve when exposed to environmental changes.
鈥淐hemical evolution is chemistry that keeps changing and doing new things,鈥 Williams explains. 鈥淚t鈥檚 unending chemical change, but with exploration of new chemical spaces. We wondered if we could set up a system that does that without introducing new molecules ourselves 鈥 instead we had the system oscillate between wet and dry conditions.鈥
In nature, these systems might look like a landscape where water condenses, and then dries out, over and over again 鈥 conditions that arise naturally from the day-night cycles of our planet.
From simple molecules to complex systems
The study identified three key findings 鈥 chemical systems can continuously evolve without reaching equilibrium, avoid uncontrolled complexity through selective chemical pathways, and exhibit synchronized population dynamics among different molecular species. This suggests that environmental factors played a key role in shaping the molecular complexity needed for life to emerge.
鈥淭his research offers a new perspective on how molecular evolution might have unfolded on early Earth,鈥 says Frenkel-Pinter, assistant professor in the Institute of Chemistry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 鈥淏y demonstrating that chemical systems can self-organize and evolve in structured ways, we provide experimental evidence that may help bridge the gap between prebiotic chemistry and the emergence of biological molecules.鈥
Beyond its relevance to origins-of-life research, the study鈥檚 findings may have broader applications in synthetic biology and nanotechnology. Controlled chemical evolution could be harnessed to design new molecular systems with specific properties, potentially leading to innovations in materials science, drug development, and biotechnology.
This research is shared jointly with The Hebrew University of Jerusalem .
