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Prebiotic may refer to:
- Prebiotic (chemistry), inorganic or organic chemistry in the natural environment before the advent of life on Earth
- Prebiotic (nutrition), non-digestible food ingredients
| Look up prebiotic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Prebiotic may refer to:
Biotics describe living or once living components of a community; for example organisms, such as animals and plants.
The Miller–Urey experiment was a chemical experiment that simulated the conditions thought at the time (1952) to be present on the early Earth and tested the chemical origin of life under those conditions. The experiment at the time supported Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that putative conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized more complex organic compounds from simpler inorganic precursors. Considered to be the classic experiment investigating abiogenesis, it was performed in 1952 by Stanley Miller, supervised by Harold Urey at the University of Chicago, and published the following year.
Pyrimidine is an aromatic heterocyclic organic compound similar to pyridine. One of the three diazines, it has the nitrogen atoms at positions 1 and 3 in the ring. The other diazines are pyrazine and pyridazine. In nucleic acids, three types of nucleobases are pyrimidine derivatives: cytosine (C), thymine (T), and uracil (U).
The RNA world is a hypothetical stage in the evolutionary history of life on Earth, in which self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins. The term also refers to the hypothesis that posits the existence of this stage.
Nucleosides are glycosylamines that can be thought of as nucleotides without a phosphate group. A nucleoside consists simply of a nucleobase (also termed a nitrogenous base) and a five-carbon sugar (ribose or 2'-deoxyribose) whereas a nucleotide is composed of a nucleobase, a five-carbon sugar, and one or more phosphate groups. In a nucleoside, the anomeric carbon is linked through a glycosidic bond to the N9 of a purine or the N1 of a pyrimidine. Examples of nucleosides include cytidine, [ alcohol group (-CH2-OH) to produce nucleotides. Nucleotides are the molecular building-blocks of DNA and RNA.
Stanley Lloyd Miller was an American chemist who made landmark experiments in the origin of life by demonstrating that a wide range of vital organic compounds can be synthesized by fairly simple chemical processes from inorganic substances. In 1952 he carried out the Miller–Urey experiment, which showed that complex organic molecules could be synthesised from inorganic precursors. The experiment was widely reported, and provided support for the idea that the chemical evolution of the early Earth had led to the natural synthesis of chemical building blocks of life from inanimate inorganic molecules. He has been described as the "father of prebiotic chemistry".
Tholins are a wide variety of organic compounds formed by solar ultraviolet or cosmic ray irradiation of simple carbon-containing compounds such as carbon dioxide, methane or ethane, often in combination with nitrogen or water. Tholins are disordered polymer-like materials made of repeating chains of linked subunits and complex combinations of functional groups, typically nitriles and hydrocarbons and their degraded forms such as amines and phenyls. Tholins do not form naturally on modern-day Earth, but they are found in great abundance on the surfaces of icy bodies in the outer Solar System, and as reddish aerosols in the atmospheres of outer Solar System planets and moons.
Inulins are a group of naturally occurring polysaccharides produced by many types of plants, industrially most often extracted from chicory. The inulins belong to a class of dietary fibers known as fructans. Inulin is used by some plants as a means of storing energy and is typically found in roots or rhizomes. Most plants that synthesize and store inulin do not store other forms of carbohydrate such as starch. In the United States in 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved inulin as a dietary fiber ingredient used to improve the nutritional value of manufactured food products. Using inulin to measure kidney function is the "gold standard" for comparison with other means of estimating glomerular filtration rate.
Leslie Eleazer Orgel FRS was a British chemist. He is known for his theories on the origin of life.
Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) also sometimes called oligofructose or oligofructan, are oligosaccharide fructans, used as an alternative sweetener. FOS exhibits sweetness levels between 30 and 50 percent of sugar in commercially prepared syrups. It occurs naturally, and its commercial use emerged in the 1980s in response to consumer demand for healthier and calorie-reduced foods.
Prebiotics are compounds in food that induce the growth or activity of beneficial microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. The most common example is in the gastrointestinal tract, where prebiotics can alter the composition of organisms in the gut microbiome.
Glycolaldehyde is the organic compound with the formula HOCH2-CHO. It is the smallest possible molecule that contains both an aldehyde group and a hydroxyl group. It is a highly reactive molecule that occurs both in the biosphere and in the interstellar medium. It is normally supplied as a white solid. Although it conforms to the general formula for carbohydrates, Cn(H2O)n, it is not generally considered to be a saccharide.
α-Hydroxy acids, or alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), are a class of chemical compounds that consist of a carboxylic acid substituted with a hydroxyl group on the adjacent carbon. They may be naturally occurring or synthetic. AHAs are well known for their use in the cosmetics industry. They are often found in products that aid in the reduction of wrinkles, that soften strong, defining lines, and that improve the overall look and feel of the skin. They are also used as chemical peels. AHAs have effective results through continuous treatment in the cosmeceutical industry.
In evolutionary biology, abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life (OoL), is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. While the details of this process are still unknown, the prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes. Although the occurrence of abiogenesis is uncontroversial among scientists, its possible mechanisms are poorly understood. There are several principles and hypotheses for how abiogenesis could have occurred.
Galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), also known as oligogalactosyllactose, oligogalactose, oligolactose or transgalactooligosaccharides (TOS), belong to the group of prebiotics. Prebiotics are defined as non-digestible food ingredients that beneficially affect the host by stimulating the growth and/or activity of beneficial bacteria in the colon. GOS occurs in commercially available products such as food for both infants and adults.
John David Sutherland FRS is a British chemist at Medical Research Council (MRC), Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), Protein & Nucleic Acid Chemistry Division. His work on the possible chemistry of early life has been widely recognised.
OREOcube is an experiment designed by the European Space Agency that will investigate the effects of solar and cosmic radiation on selected organic compounds. It will consist in a 12-month orbital study of the effects of the outer space environment on astrobiologically relevant materials in an external exposure facility on the International Space Station.
James "Jim" P. Ferris was an American chemist. He is known for his contributions to the understanding of the origins of life on Earth, specifically by demonstrating a successful mechanism of clay-catalyzed polymerization of RNA, providing further evidence for the RNA World Hypothesis. Additionally, his work in atmospheric photochemistry has illuminated many of the chemical processes which occur in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn's moon, Titan.
Dragonfly is a planned spacecraft and NASA mission, which will send a robotic rotorcraft to the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. It would be the first aircraft on Titan and is intended to make the first powered and fully controlled atmospheric flight on any moon, with the intention of studying prebiotic chemistry and extraterrestrial habitability. It will then use this vertical takeoffs and landings (VTOL) capability to move between exploration sites.
Formamide-based prebiotic chemistry refers to ongoing scientific efforts aimed at reconstructing the beginnings of life on our planet assuming that formamide could accumulate in sufficiently high amounts to serve as the building block and reaction medium for the synthesis of the first biogenic molecules.