Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry
| Autor: | Piotr S. Gromski, Douglas Moore, Stuart M. Marshall, Sara Imari Walker, Heather Graham, Geoffrey J. T. Cooper, Graham Keenan, Emma Carrick, Matthew Craven, Cole Mathis, Leroy Cronin |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
0301 basic medicine
Extraterrestrial Environment Computer science media_common.quotation_subject Science Planets General Physics and Astronomy Outer space 01 natural sciences Measure (mathematics) Article General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Astrobiology 03 medical and health sciences Abiogenesis Origin of life Exobiology 0103 physical sciences 010303 astronomy & astrophysics media_common Multidisciplinary Mass spectrometry Cheminformatics Scale (chemistry) Computational Biology General Chemistry Living systems Identification (information) 030104 developmental biology Molecular Diagnostic Techniques Extraterrestrial life Algorithms |
| Zdroj: | Nature Communications, Vol 12, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2021) Nature Communications |
| ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
| Popis: | The search for alien life is hard because we do not know what signatures are unique to life. We show why complex molecules found in high abundance are universal biosignatures and demonstrate the first intrinsic experimentally tractable measure of molecular complexity, called the molecular assembly index (MA). To do this we calculate the complexity of several million molecules and validate that their complexity can be experimentally determined by mass spectrometry. This approach allows us to identify molecular biosignatures from a set of diverse samples from around the world, outer space, and the laboratory, demonstrating it is possible to build a life detection experiment based on MA that could be deployed to extraterrestrial locations, and used as a complexity scale to quantify constraints needed to direct prebiotically plausible processes in the laboratory. Such an approach is vital for finding life elsewhere in the universe or creating de-novo life in the lab. The search for life in the universe is difficult due to issues with defining signatures of living systems. Here, the authors present an approach based on the molecular assembly number and tandem mass spectrometry that allows identification of molecules produced by biological systems, and use it to identify biosignatures from a range of samples, including ones from outer space. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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