Most models of the primitive atmosphere around the time life originated suggest that the atmosphere was dominated by carbon dioxide, largely based on the notion that the atmosphere was derived via volcanic outgassing, and that those gases were similar to those found in modern volcanic effluent. These models tend to downplay the possibility of a strongly reducing atmosphere, which had been thought to be important for prebiotic synthesis and thus the origin of life. However, there is no definitive geologic evidence for the oxidation state of the early atmosphere and bioorganic compounds are not efficiently synthesized from CO ₂ atmospheres. In the present study, it was shown that a CO-CO ₂ -N ₂ -H ₂ O atmosphere can give a variety of bioorganic compounds with yields comparable to those obtained from a strongly reducing atmosphere. Atmospheres containing carbon monoxide might therefore have been conducive to prebiotic synthesis and perhaps the origin of life. CO-dominant atmospheres could have existed if the production rate of CO from impacts of extraterrestrial materials were high or if the upper mantle had been more reduced than today.

The asymmetric synthesis of amino acid precursors from complex organics have been performed. A gaseous mixture of carbon monoxide, ammonia and water (molecules which are among those identified in the interstellar medium) was irradiated with 3.0 MeV protons to obtain amino acid precursors within high-molecular-weight complex organics of up to 3,000 Da. The amino acid precursor products synthesized were then irradiated with right (R-) or left (L-) ultraviolet circularly polarized light (UV-CPL) obtained from a synchrotron radiation (SR) source. Glycine was a predominant product, and number of chiral amino acids including alanine were identified following acid hydrolysis. R-UV-CPL preferentially produced D-alanine, while L-UV-CPL yielded more L-alanine. Enantiomeric excesses (% D - % L) of + 0.44 % and - 0.65 % were obtained by R-UV-CPL and L-UV-CPL, respectively. These results imply that the origins of chirality in meteoritic amino acids could be accounted for by the formation of asymmetric amino acid precursors from extraterrestrial complex organics by CPL in space

Both amino acids and macromolecular organic solids can be synthesized from simple molecules in small solar system bodies.

The abundance, diversity, activity, and composition of microbial communities in sulfide structures both of active and inactive vents were investigated by culture-independent methods. These sulfide structures were collected at four hydrothermal fields, both on- and off-axis of the back-arc spreading center of the Southern Mariana Trough. The microbial abundance and activity in the samples were determined by analyzing total organic content, enzymatic activity, and copy number of the 16S rRNA gene. To assess the diversity and composition of the microbial communities, 16S rRNA gene clone libraries including bacterial and archaeal phylotypes were constructed from the sulfide structures. Despite the differences in the geological settings among the sampling points, phylotypes related to the Epsilonproteobacteria and cultured hyperthermophilic archaea were abundant in the libraries from the samples of active vents. In contrast, the relative abundance of these phylotypes was extremely low in the libraries from the samples of inactive vents. These results suggest that the composition of microbial communities within sulfide structures dramatically changes depending on the degree of hydrothermal activity, which was supported by statistical analyses. Comparative analyses suggest that the abundance, activity and diversity of microbial communities within sulfide structures of inactive vents are likely to be comparable to or higher than those in active vent structures, even though the microbial community composition is different between these two types of vents. The microbial community compositions in the sulfide structures of inactive vents were similar to those in seafloor basaltic rocks rather than those in marine sediments or the sulfide structures of active vents, suggesting that the microbial community compositions on the seafloor may be constrained by the available energy sources. Our findings provide helpful information for understanding the biogeography, biodiversity and microbial ecosystems in marine environments.