From Pantelleria to Mars: a Sicilian lake located on the island has proved to be an ideal natural laboratory to simulate environments similar to those that could have existed billions of years ago both on the red planet and on earth, and which may have given rise to the first living organisms. A group of Italian researchers, starting from the water of the lake, has in fact managed to synthesize the key molecules of life, obtaining precious indications on its basic mechanisms. The study, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, is the result of the collaboration between the Universities of Tuscia and Sapienza in Rome, the National Institute of Astrophysics and the National Research Council, with the Research Institute on the Waters of Montelibretti and the Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology of Rome.
The lake, called the water of the water, has unique characteristics: high pH, hydrothermal activity and presence of many different minerals and microbes. “Using the water of the lake – says Giovanna Costanzo of Inif and IBPM -CNR, among the authors of the study – we managed to synthesize RNA molecules, one of the two fundamental molecules for life together with DNA, starting from some of its precursors”.
In addition to the EN, the researchers also obtained all the bases present in DNA and RNA and the components of the PNA, the nucleic peptide acid, which is a potential precursor of the other two. “Life, therefore, could have had a method of common chemical origin both in the distant past of Mars and on the primitive land”, comments Raffaele Saladino of the University of Tuscia, among the researchers who took part in the work.
The study was financed by the Italian Space Agency as part of the ‘improving on astrobiology project: “The results of this project – says Claudia Pacelli, scientific manager of the project for ASI – constitute a fundamental piece in the knowledge of the origin of life on earth”.