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Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life
In polar aprotic organic solvents, fluorine might be an element of choice for life that uses selected fluorinated building blocks as monomers of choice for self-assembling of its catalytic polymers. Organofluorine compounds are extremely rare in the chemistry of life as we know it. Biomolecules, whe...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4206852/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25370378 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life4030374 |
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author | Budisa, Nediljko Kubyshkin, Vladimir Schulze-Makuch, Dirk |
author_facet | Budisa, Nediljko Kubyshkin, Vladimir Schulze-Makuch, Dirk |
author_sort | Budisa, Nediljko |
collection | PubMed |
description | In polar aprotic organic solvents, fluorine might be an element of choice for life that uses selected fluorinated building blocks as monomers of choice for self-assembling of its catalytic polymers. Organofluorine compounds are extremely rare in the chemistry of life as we know it. Biomolecules, when fluorinated such as peptides or proteins, exhibit a “fluorous effect”, i.e., they are fluorophilic (neither hydrophilic nor lipophilic). Such polymers, capable of creating self-sorting assemblies, resist denaturation by organic solvents by exclusion of fluorocarbon side chains from the organic phase. Fluorous cores consist of a compact interior, which is shielded from the surrounding solvent. Thus, we can anticipate that fluorine-containing “teflon”-like or “non-sticking” building blocks might be monomers of choice for the synthesis of organized polymeric structures in fluorine-rich planetary environments. Although no fluorine-rich planetary environment is known, theoretical considerations might help us to define chemistries that might support life in such environments. For example, one scenario is that all molecular oxygen may be used up by oxidation reactions on a planetary surface and fluorine gas could be released from F-rich magma later in the history of a planetary body to result in a fluorine-rich planetary environment. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4206852 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42068522014-10-27 Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life Budisa, Nediljko Kubyshkin, Vladimir Schulze-Makuch, Dirk Life (Basel) Communication In polar aprotic organic solvents, fluorine might be an element of choice for life that uses selected fluorinated building blocks as monomers of choice for self-assembling of its catalytic polymers. Organofluorine compounds are extremely rare in the chemistry of life as we know it. Biomolecules, when fluorinated such as peptides or proteins, exhibit a “fluorous effect”, i.e., they are fluorophilic (neither hydrophilic nor lipophilic). Such polymers, capable of creating self-sorting assemblies, resist denaturation by organic solvents by exclusion of fluorocarbon side chains from the organic phase. Fluorous cores consist of a compact interior, which is shielded from the surrounding solvent. Thus, we can anticipate that fluorine-containing “teflon”-like or “non-sticking” building blocks might be monomers of choice for the synthesis of organized polymeric structures in fluorine-rich planetary environments. Although no fluorine-rich planetary environment is known, theoretical considerations might help us to define chemistries that might support life in such environments. For example, one scenario is that all molecular oxygen may be used up by oxidation reactions on a planetary surface and fluorine gas could be released from F-rich magma later in the history of a planetary body to result in a fluorine-rich planetary environment. MDPI 2014-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4206852/ /pubmed/25370378 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life4030374 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). |
spellingShingle | Communication Budisa, Nediljko Kubyshkin, Vladimir Schulze-Makuch, Dirk Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life |
title | Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life |
title_full | Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life |
title_fullStr | Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life |
title_full_unstemmed | Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life |
title_short | Fluorine-Rich Planetary Environments as Possible Habitats for Life |
title_sort | fluorine-rich planetary environments as possible habitats for life |
topic | Communication |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4206852/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25370378 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life4030374 |
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