| Project/Area Number |
22K18278
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Pioneering)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Review Section |
Medium-sized Section 17:Earth and planetary science and related fields
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Institute of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
中村 龍平 東京工業大学, 地球生命研究所, 教授 (10447419)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2022-06-30 – 2025-03-31
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| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥25,740,000 (Direct Cost: ¥19,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥5,940,000)
Fiscal Year 2024: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2023: ¥7,410,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,710,000)
Fiscal Year 2022: ¥17,290,000 (Direct Cost: ¥13,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥3,990,000)
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| Keywords | hydrothermal vents / origin of life / catalysis / electron transfer / proton motive force / early metabolism / Archean / evolution / reduction potential / aquaplanet |
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| Outline of Research at the Start |
Life requires energy and nutrients. In our proposal, we address the challenge of understanding where nutrient and energy may have came from for the origin of life. We focus on hydrothermal vents, which may be present on many wet and rocky planets in the universe. We pioneer a novel strategy of energy flow in hydrothermal vents involving electron transfer from donors at high pH, to acceptors in lower pH. Our goal is to begin to understand energy transfer reactions which could have led to the origin of life.
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
How life used energy to construct itself at the origin of life is unknown. We hypothesized that naturally existing pH gradients at hydrothermal vents could be harnessed by early life and used for synthesis activities. To investigate this we are constructing simulated hydrothermal vents in the laboratory and investigating catalysis. Currently we have focussed on electron transfer reactions to and from potential early co-factors and we may also begin styling peptides. . In this year we have demonstrated co-factor oxidation and reduction using iron-sulfide precipitates in a micro fluidic reactor. Going further, we have investigated the mineral precipitate using microscopy and spectroscopy. We successfully developed the ability to inject solutions under hydrothermal-like conditions including with the use of multiple types of gasses which can be used as reactants in our experiments. Our work will furnish new understandings of how early life may have used energy, and also the type of energy used. In our next steps we will focus on high spatial resolution techniques including the application of synchrotron x-ray radiation where we can visualize the reduction state of iron and sulfur during experiments.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
1: Research has progressed more than it was originally planned.
Reason
We have successfully demonstrated reduction reactions coupled to oxidation reactions in a simulated hydrothermal vent mineral precipitate. We have established the facilities to perform more detailed experiments and are currently working towards frontier spectroscopy including in operando Raman and synchrotron x-ray analyses. Our findings will have far reaching impact into the understandings of the chemical origins of life as well as mineralogy of hydrothermal vents.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In our subsequent work we will investigate a range of reactions including additional primordial co-factors as well as inorganic electron donors and oxidants. We will incorporate these results into models of early metabolism and identify more clearly the overlaps between geochemistry and biochemistry.
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