F., Mexico On May 15th, 1953, a short paper by a graduate student named Stanley Miller appeared in the journal Science. It described the spark discharge formation of glycine, alanine and several other amino acids (Miller, 1953) from inorganic constituents thought to comprise Selleckchem Sotrastaurin the hypothesized reducing atmosphere of early Earth. Miller’s work quite literally “sparked” the legitimization of the field of prebiotic chemistry; the basic molecules of life could, with relative ease, be

synthesized from inorganic compounds thought to be abundant in the Earth’s atmosphere 4.5 billion years ago. Darwin’s “warm little pond” was no longer a hypothetical concept as much as a feasible scenario. Recently discovered samples from the original spark discharge experiments have been re-analyzed using HPLC-FD and LC-FD/ToF-MS

in order to identify lesser constituents that would have been undetectable by analytical techniques Selleck Poziotinib 50 years ago. Using his original laboratory notebooks (Mandeville Special Collections, UCSD), we have reconstructed and identified the original fractions from his three thesis experiments The overall goal of this research was to identify lesser constituents of the original extracts that would have been undetectable by the ninhydrin-spray technique of the 1950s. Results show the presence of several isomeric forms of aminobutyric acid, as well as serine, homoserine, isoserine, isovaline, valine, phenylalanine, ornithine, amino adipic acid, ethanolamine and other methylated and hydroxylated amino acids. These analyses identified the previously unknown compounds E, F and B1 (Miller, 1954; Miller, 1955) as a yet undetermined C4 amino acid, ethanolamine and β-amnoisobutyric acid, respectively. Both the diversity and yield increased in experiments utilizing a water-aspirating device designed to increase water vapor-gas flow rates delivered to the spark. Application of this experiment Selleckchem Bortezomib to early Earth would best mimic the intense lightning discharges that accompany volcanic eruptions. In this scenario, reduced and neutral gas species would be subjected

to lightning, and thus exposed to localized discharge events prior to being rained out into tidal areas where products could undergo click here concentration events. The distribution of compounds formed in these experiments is significantly greater than previously published (Miller, 1954; Miller, 1955) and mimic the assortment of compounds detected in both Murchison (Botta and Bada, 2002) and CM meteorites (Glavin, et al. 2006). The addition of these several new amino acid and amine species to the previously reported spark discharge products will serve as a fitting final tribute to the founding father of prebiotic chemistry. Botta, O. and Bada, J. L., (2002). Extraterrestrial organic compounds in meteorites. Surveys in Geophysics. 23: 411–467. Glavin, D. P., Dworkin, J. P., Aubrey, A., Botta, O., Doty III, J. H., Martins, Z., and Bada, J. L. (2006).