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35 Polymer Chemistry
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Today it is possible for chemists with great effort to produce amino acids. However, formation of long chains such as required for living creatures are possible only under extremely clean conditions. Even minute impurities can lead to interruption in a chain. Moreover, the amino acid chains decompose as soon as they come into contact with water. Since such a hypothetic primordial soup would certainly have contained water, it is impossible for such amino acid chains and particularly complete proteins to have formed.
A major problem for the origin of life is the fact that proteins decompose on the basis of chemical laws as soon as they come into contact with water (1) (2). To make matter worse, water is produced during the production of the proteins (this process is called hydrolysis), which disrupts polycondensation and immediately destroys any polymers developing. In living cells, the water occurring during protein production is dissipated in a finely balanced process by special enzymes.
Chain formation with bifunctional molecules:
Molecules must be at least bifunctional in order to join together, i.e. they must have two linkage points. If a monofunctional molecule (i.e. a molecule with only one linkage point) attaches itself to the end of the chain, it is not possible for any further molecules to dock on, so chain formation is discontinued (3). Now, it is necessary to imagine that a primordial soup is not a polymer chemical laboratory where the various processes are supervised and the formation of chains is terminated specifically by adding monofunctional molecules only when the desired chain length has been reached (4).
The only environment known in which DNA strings form are the various living cells. The prerequisites for creation of proteins are living cells which, for their part, also consist of proteins.
Without proteins there are no cells and without cells no proteins. Vivum ex vivo – Life comes [only] from life – this principle also appears to be confirmed .
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References:
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| (1) |
J. Sarfati, Origin of life: the polymerization problem, Journal of Creation 12(3), 1998, P 281–284. |
| (2) |
G.B. Johnson und P.H. Raven, Biology, Principles & Explorations, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, Florida, 1998, P. 235. |
| (3) |
Bruno Vollmert, Das Molekül und das Leben, Rowohlt, 1985, P. 54-58. |
| (4) |
P.H. Raven, Biology, A current bubble hypothesis, WCB/McGraw-Hill, 1999, P. 69. | |
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