美国亚利桑那大学Dante S. Lauretta小组宣布他们的最新研究提出了Bennu小行星样本中的生物必需糖。相关论文于2025年12月2日发表在《自然—地球科学》杂志上。
在这里，研究团队分析了OSIRIS-REx航天器收集的小行星（101955）Bennu样本中的提取物，并确定了几种生物必需糖，包括核糖（RNA糖）和葡萄糖（代谢底物）。这些糖构成了生命的关键成分。它们的分布与甲醛溶液冷凝产物中的分布一致。考虑到Bennu含有甲醛，并且起源于一颗古老的母小行星，该母小行星经历了水流体的长期改变，该研究团队假设在母小行星中检测到的糖是由含有甲醛的盐水形成的。这表明，具有生命所必需的所有三种成分的物质可能已经分散到生命起源前的地球和其他内行星上。
据介绍，来自太空的有机分子，比如在碳古陨石中发现的有机分子，长期以来一直被假设为地球上第一批生命的存在。这一假设得到了进一步的证实，因为在从碳源小行星Bennu和Ryugu带回的原始样本中，探测到了生命的两种基本组成部分——核碱基和构成蛋白质的氨基酸。然而，生命也需要糖，由于可用质量有限，在琉球的样本中无法搜索到糖，并且由于陆地暴露，它们在一些陨石中的存在是模棱两可的。
附：英文原文
Title: Bio-essential sugars in samples from asteroid Bennu
Author: Furukawa, Yoshihiro, Sunami, Sako, Takano, Yoshinori, Koga, Toshiki, Hirakawa, Yuta, Oba, Yasuhiro, Naraoka, Hiroshi, Saigusa, Daisuke, Yoshikawa, Takaaki, Tanaka, Satoru, Glavin, Daniel P., Dworkin, Jason P., Connolly, Harold C., Lauretta, Dante S.
Issue&Volume: 2025-12-02
Abstract: Deliveries of organic molecules from space, such as those found in carbonaceous meteorites, have long been hypothesized as a source of the inventory of the first life on Earth. This hypothesis is strengthened by detections of two of life’s fundamental building blocks—nucleobases and protein-building amino acids—in pristine samples returned by spacecraft from the carbonaceous asteroids Bennu and Ryugu. However, life also requires sugars, which cannot be searched for in Ryugu samples due to limited available mass, and their presence in some meteorites is equivocal owing to terrestrial exposure. Here we analyse an extract from a sample of asteroid (101955) Bennu collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and identify several bio-essential sugars, including ribose (RNA sugar) and glucose (metabolism substrate). These sugars complete the inventory of ingredients crucial to life. Their distribution is consistent with that in the condensation products of formaldehyde solution. Given that Bennu contains formaldehyde and originates from an ancient parent asteroid that underwent long-term alteration by aqueous fluids, we postulate that the detected sugars formed in the parent asteroid from brines containing formaldehyde. This indicates that material with all three components necessary to life could have been dispersed to prebiotic Earth and other inner planets.
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-025-01838-6
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01838-6