Shpongle

This came up on another foum:

"Look at this equation for forming peptides RCOOH2 + RCOOH2 = Peptides and water.

Now the equation might be incorrect, but in place of the equal sign, would be an equilibrium sign, meaning the equation can go left or right depending on the products/reactants. So with an increase in water on one side, the equation will go back to 2[RCOOH2]. Question is how can peptides form in the ocean?"

I know it's theorized that peptides could have formed under certain conditions (hydrothermal vents, for example), but I was hoping someone with more knowledge could give me an answer for this.

Automaton

Heat and other energy sources can shift thermodynamically unfavourable equilibrium reactions slightly to the right, for example heating ammonium hydroxide solution can result in ammonia gas: NH4OH <==> NH3 + H2O. Plus, not all origin-of-life chemical scenarios occur in an excess of water; reactions could occur in fluctuatory zones in the ocean where organics clump together; areas where much of the water has evaporated, such as beaches, drying streams, lagoons, and lakes, the sides of marine volcanos, etc.; amino acids could react within a water-insoluable membrane such as a lipid sphere; aminos could react with a dessicating substance such as SO2 from hydrothermal vents or on a catalytic clay surface; etc., etc. It's not nearly as simple as the naysayers would like to have us think... there were plenty of opportunities for peptides to form on the primordial Earth.

Boro Nut

No question about it. In blind tests, eight out of ten people preffered it to Coca Cola.

Boro Nut

DeLurking

Peptidic bond is quite stable in water. Note that, in our bodies, proteins are in aquous solution and don´t degrade.