Life on Earth is formed as a result of the interaction of hundreds of chemical components and reactions. Some of these compounds and reactions are found in all organisms and create a universal biochemistry that applies to all life on earth. However, this concept of universality is specific to known biochemistry and does not allow predictions to be made about samples that have not yet been observed.
In contrast, until now, the search for extraterrestrial life forms was carried out as a reference to this definition of ‘life form’ on Earth. For astrobiologists looking for life on other planets, there was no tool to predict the properties of “life we don’t know”. However, scientists have managed to overcome this limitation by identifying universal patterns in the chemistry of life that are not tied to specific molecules, with a new study.
A new opportunity to identify features of alien life
The findings of the research are new to predict features of alien life with different biochemistry from life on Earth. It is said to present an opportunity.
lead author of the study, Dylan Gagler, a bioinformatics analyst at New York University Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, became interested in universal biology out of a desire to better grasp the phenomenon of life. Stating that the phenomenon of life is an extremely difficult concept to detect, Gagler said, “As far as I can tell, life is ultimately a biochemical process, so I wanted to explore what life does at this level.” saves as.
To this end, Gagler and another co-author of the study Sara Imari Walker, associate professor in the School of Earth and Space Studies and the School of Complex Adaptive Systems at Arizona State University, believe that enzymes, the functional drivers of biochemistry, are a good way to approach this concept. They decided there was a way. Using the Integrated Microbial Genomes and Microbiomes database, they, together with their collaborators, investigated the enzymatic makeup of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes, thereby identifying much of the Earth’s biochemistry.
A new definition of ‘universal biochemical structure’ was made
“We want to have new tools to describe and even predict features of life that we do not know”, Walker said, “To do this, we aim to identify universal laws that should apply to any biochemical system. This includes developing quantitative theory for the origins of life and using theory and statistics to guide our search for life on other planets.” Stating that humans are not just composed of molecules that are part of their bodies, Walker notes that their work aims to develop ways to transform this philosophical understanding into a testable scientific hypothesis. succeeded in discovering a new type of universal definition of biochemical structure by identifying statistical patterns.
The study may guide the search for new life examples
“This new We identified types of biochemical universality and found that they were more generalizable to unknown life forms compared to the traditional one defined by certain molecules and reactions common to all life on earth. Hyunju Kim, the co-author of the study, says that this discovery has enabled them to develop a new theory that can guide the search for new life examples for the general rules of life.
Co-author Chris Kempes of the Santa Fe Institute notes, “We can expect these results to be valid anywhere in the universe, and this is an exciting possibility that will motivate many interesting studies in the future.”
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