OoL digest — edition 7

Greetings from Montreal! Today we again have a lot of papers related to the OoL. In biochemistry, Jia examines the segregation of RNA in microdroplets, Li the role of hydrophobic-cationic peptides in wet-dry cycles, and Yagi the role that double-psi beta-barrel could have played in the early genetic code. In astrobiology, Davila looks at possible transfer scenarios between Mars and the Earth and Liu discusses the hypothesis of a reducing atmosphere on early Mars. Kaltenegger and Krissansen‐Totton both discuss biosignature observation, Turbet looks at the influence of the host star’s spectral properties on planetary habitability and Yang analyzes the reasons why the amounts of organic material differ through planet formation processes. Happy reading!

Biochemistry

Jia, T.Z., Bapat, N.V., Verma, A., Mamajanov, I., Cleaves, H.J., Chandru, K., 2021. Incorporation of Basic α-Hydroxy Acid Residues into Primitive Polyester Microdroplets for RNA Segregation. Biomacromolecules 22, 1484–1493. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.0c01697

Li, P., Holliger, P., Tagami, S., 2021. Hydrophobic-cationic peptides enhance RNA polymerase ribozyme activity by accretion. bioRxiv 2021.02.22.432394. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.22.432394

Yagi, S., Padhi, A.K., Vucinic, J., Barbe, S., Schiex, T., Nakagawa, R., Simoncini, D., Zhang, K.Y.J., Tagami, S., 2021. Seven amino acid types suffice to reconstruct the core fold of RNA polymerase. bioRxiv 2021.02.22.432383. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.22.432383

Astrobiology

Davila, A.F., 2021. Life on Mars: Independent Genesis or Common Ancestor? Astrobiology. https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2020.2397

Kaltenegger, L., Lin, Z., 2021. Finding Signs of Life in Transit: High-resolution Transmission Spectra of Earth-like Planets around FGKM Host Stars. ApJL 909, L2. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/abe634

Krissansen‐Totton, J., Fortney, J.J., Nimmo, F., Wogan, N., 2021. Oxygen False Positives on Habitable Zone Planets Around Sun-Like Stars. AGU Advances 2, e2020AV000294. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020AV000294

Liu, J., Michalski, J.R., Tan, W., He, H., Ye, B., Xiao, L., 2021. Anoxic chemical weathering under a reducing greenhouse on early Mars. Nature Astronomy 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01303-5

Turbet, M., Selsis, F., 2021. Main ways in which stars influence the climate and surface habitability of their planets. arXiv:2104.06391 [astro-ph]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2104.06391

Yang, Y.-L., Sakai, N., Zhang, Y., Murillo, N.M., Zhang, Z.E., Higuchi, A.E., Zeng, S., López-Sepulcre, A., Yamamoto, S., Lefloch, B., Bouvier, M., Ceccarelli, C., Hirota, T., Imai, M., Oya, Y., Sakai, T., Watanabe, Y., 2021. The Perseus ALMA Chemistry Survey (PEACHES). I. The Complex Organic Molecules in Perseus Embedded Protostars. ApJ 910, 20. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abdfd6

Microbiology

Casar, C.P., Kruger, B.R., Osburn, M.R., 2021. Rock-Hosted Subsurface Biofilms: Mineral Selectivity Drives Hotspots for Intraterrestrial Life. Front. Microbiol. 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.658988