Ribozyme trapping in ferruginous chemical gardens (B06)

• Subject Area: Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 521256690

Mechanisms of nucleic acid accumulation were likely critical to the emergence of life in the ferruginous oceans of the early Earth, but how prebiotic geological settings accumulated nucleic acids is poorly understood. As a possible solution to this concentration problem, we will investigate the potential of ferruginous hydrothermal chimney structures to sequester RNA and ribozymes from a surrounding dilute ferruginous solution. This will reveal whether ferruginous hydrothermal chimneys could have concentrated RNA and ribozymes and thereby promoted RNA survival during the "RNA world" in a dilute prebiotic ferruginous ocean.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 392: Molecular evolution in prebiotic environments
• Applicant Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Project Head: Professor William Orsi, Ph.D., since 1/2024