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Abiotic Synthesis & the Origin of Life

Chapter 18 /  Lesson 61   Transcript
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Abiotic Synthesis & the Origin of Life
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  • 0:02 Making Something from Nothing
  • 0:46 Abiotic Synthesis
  • 2:19 Miller-Urey Experiment
  • 3:08 Lesson Summary
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Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Bridgett Payseur

Bridgett has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and teaches college biology.

Abiotic synthesis means making compounds using non-living molecules. It's possible that organic molecules formed before life began and built up to make the first cells. Let's explore this theory and its hallmark experiment.

Making Something from Nothing

Imagine a factory that makes conveyor belts. These conveyor belts, coincidentally, have to be shipped down conveyor belts as they're being produced and packaged. Where did the original conveyor belts come from? Could the factory have made them without its own machines to move them around? The conveyor belts in the factory probably would have had to come from someplace else, such as another factory.

Cells are a lot like microscopic factories, making proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and nucleic acids. When a new cell is made, it gets its starting materials from the parent cell, just like how our factory needed conveyor belts from another, older factory. But what about the first cells? How did they get all the materials they needed to be cells?

Abiotic Synthesis

Cells contain a lot of organic molecules, which are carbon-based compounds that help do things for the cells. Fats and carbohydrates can store energy, for example, while proteins help reactions happen, and nucleic acids hold the cell's information. These components are made by cells and make up cells. Before cells evolved, however, organic molecules would've had to have been made via abiotic synthesis.

'Abiotic' means without life, and 'synthesis' means to make. Abiotic synthesis is, therefore, making things without life. The atmosphere on the early earth most likely contained water vapor, methane gas, ammonia, and carbon dioxide. These gases contain the major elements found in organic molecules: carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen. Scientists hypothesized that these gases could join up together to make organic molecules, just like taking Lego blocks from a small house and combining them to build a bigger, more elaborate house.

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