Hemolithin (sometimes confused with the similar space polymer Hemoglycin) is a proposed protein containing iron and lithium, of extraterrestrial origin, according to an unpublished preprint.
The protein was purportedly found inside two CV3 meteorites, Allende and Acfer-086,[1][2][4] by a team of scientists led by Harvard University biochemist Julie McGeoch.
[9][10] The detected hemolithin protein was reported to have been found inside two CV3 meteorites Allende and Acfer 086.
[2][5] According to the researchers' mass spectrometry, hemolithin is largely composed of glycine and hydroxyglycine amino acids.
[10] The researchers noted that the protein was related to "very high extraterrestrial" ratios of Deuterium/Hydrogen (D/H);[2] such high D/H ratios are not found anywhere on Earth, but are "consistent with long-period comets"[3] and suggest, as reported, "that the protein was formed in the proto-solar disc or perhaps even earlier, in interstellar molecular clouds that existed long before the Sun's birth".
[2] Exobiologist and chemist Jeffrey Bada expressed concerns about the possible protein discovery commenting, "The main problem is the occurrence of hydroxyglycine, which, to my knowledge, has never before been reported in meteorites or in prebiotic experiments.
Its deuterium to hydrogen ratio is 26 times terrestrial which is consistent with it having formed in an interstellar molecular cloud, or later in the protoplanetary disk at the start of the Solar System 4.567 billion years ago.
The elements hydrogen, lithium, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and iron that it is composed of, were all available for the first time 13 billion years ago after the first generation of massive stars ended in nucleosynthetic events.
The research leading to the discovery of Hemolithin started in 2007 when another protein, one of the first to form on Earth, was observed to entrap water.
Hemoglycin, a space polymer of glycine and iron has been extensively characterized [1-11] and it does contain lithium in some samples [5].
4th on exo-planets that evolve biochemistry like Earth, it could be asked whether the formation of DNA involves hemoglycin as a template.
It may have first formed 500 million years into cosmic time as a structure that could absorb photons from 0.2-15 μm [7,8,9,10], be available throughout the Universe, and provide energy to drive adjacent space chemistry.
On its in-fall to exo-planets like Earth it could absorb solar ultraviolet and donate energy to early chemical systems.
Synthetic hemoglycin synthesis will be attempted in 2025 to aid acquisition of a refined x-ray diffraction set for its structure.
A comparison of the MALDI mass spectrometry fragmentation patterns [5,11] of synthetic and extracted hemoglycin will be informative.