Shenzhen University proposes mineral nanozymes catalyzed primordial biopolymer formation

Jin’s framework assigns five functions to primitive mineral nanozymes—catalysis, surface confinement, UV protection, photo-selection, and energy transduction—operating across volcanic and hydrothermal gradients. These MN-zymes are posited to have converted atmospheric gases into increasingly complex organics over billions of years, with later hybridization by small organic molecules enabling information storage and replication. The proposal integrates elements of metabolism-first and RNA-world models without replacing them, treating Earth as a long-timescale, high-pressure natural reactor.

No new experimental data accompany the hypothesis; it extrapolates from known nanozyme synthesis routes and mineral catalysis literature. Related work includes hydrothermal vent simulations showing amino-acid formation and iron-sulfur cluster studies, yet none directly test nanozyme-mediated selection or information encoding at scale. The absence of quantitative kinetic models or isotopic signatures leaves the scenario unlinked to specific geological strata.

Connections to ongoing NASA and ESA astrobiology programs remain unexplored in the original release. Synthetic-biology groups engineering artificial metalloenzymes could adopt MN-zyme motifs for prebiotic reaction networks, while Mars sample-return analyses might search for analogous mineral-organic interfaces. A decisive test would require demonstrating sustained, heritable molecular complexity from mineral-only starting conditions under anoxic UV flux.

Next steps include targeted high-pressure flow-reactor experiments measuring nucleotide polymerization rates on sulfide nanoparticles and computational mapping of energy landscapes across mantle-crust gradients, with falsification possible if no catalytic advantage over uncatalyzed controls appears within defined temperature-pressure windows.