February 12, 2026BioCosmos1 citationsOpen Access
Thermodynamic Limitations on the Natural Emergence of Long Chain Molecules: Implications for Origin of Life
Key Points
- The aim is to understand how thermodynamic factors limit the formation of long-chain molecules essential for the origin of life.
- Analyzed decay time constants of polymers consisting of N-monomer-units
- Established relationships between polymer decay times and monomer lengths
- Investigated implications for prebiotic scenarios involving nucleotides, peptides, and carbohydrates.
- Showed that longer polymers have significantly shorter decay times.
- Indicated that time constraints for polymer formation could limit prebiotic sequences.
- Highlighted that all three classes of prebiotically relevant polymers face similar decay time challenges.
Abstract
Abstract For a polymer of N-monomer-units long, or N-mer, which has a dimer decay time constant of τ , the polymer decay time constant is proved to be closely approximated by τ /N (under rather general assumptions). The implications of this for abiogenesis are profound, namely that there would be small amounts of time available (order of days) for a prebiotic sequence of a condensation polymer to serve as the primary information-bearing code for the last universal common ancestor. All three classes of prebiotically relevant polymers (polynucleotides, polypeptides and polysaccharides) are condensation polymers expected to be subject to these time constraints.