Assembly theory

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Synthesis of aristolochic acid. Complex molecules require many steps to be synthesized. And the more steps are required to synthesize a particular molecule, the more likely it is of a biological (or technological) origin

Assembly theory is a theory that characterizes object complexity. When applied to molecules, its authors claim it to be the first technique that is experimentally verifiable, unlike other molecular complexity algorithms that lack experimental measure.^[1] The theory was developed as a means to detect evidence of extraterrestrial life from data gathered by astronomical observations or probes.^[2]

Background[]

The theory was invented^[3] by Leroy Cronin and developed by the team he leads at the University of Glasgow,^[4][5] then extended in collaboration with a team at Arizona State University led by Sara Imari Walker.^[6][7] It is difficult to identify chemical signatures that are unique to life.^[5][8] For example, the Viking lander biological experiments detected molecules that could be explained by either living or natural non-living processes.^{[5][9][non-primary source needed]}

Assembly theory compares how complex a given object is as function of the number of independent parts and their abundances. To calculate how complex an item is, it is recursively divided into its component parts. The 'assembly index' is defined as the shortest path to put the object back together.^{[citation needed]}

For example, the word 'abracadabra' consists of 5 different letters and is 11 symbols long. It can be assembled from its constituents as a + b --> ab + r --> abr + a --> abra + c --> abrac + a --> abraca + d --> abracad + abra --> abracadabra, because 'abra' was already constructed at an earlier stage. Because this requires 7 steps, the assembly index is 7. The string ‘abcdefghijk’ has no repeats so has an assembly index of 10.^{[citation needed]}

While other approaches can provide a measure of complexity, the researchers claim that assembly theory's molecular assembly number the first to be measurable experimentally. They argue that the molecular assembly number can be used to gauge the improbability that a complex molecule was created without life, with a higher number of steps corresponding to higher improbability.^[5] This method could be implemented in a fragmentation tandem mass spectrometry instrument to search for biosignatures.^[5] Leroy Cronin stated "Our system is the first falsifiable hypothesis for life detection and is based on the idea that only living systems can produce complex molecules that could not form randomly in any abundance, and this allows us to sidestep the problem of defining life."^[6]

The theory was extended to map chemical space with molecular assembly trees.^[10][3] These trees were formed by arranging constituent pieces in size order. When two or more molecules have common units, their trees are combined, including the two target molecules and various hybrids.^{[citation needed]}

See also[]

• List of interstellar and circumstellar molecules

References[]

Further reading[]

• Cronin, Leroy; Walker, Sara Imari (3 June 2016). "Beyond prebiotic chemistry". Science. 352 (6290): 1174–1175. Bibcode:2016Sci...352.1174C. doi:10.1126/science.aaf6310. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 27257242. S2CID 206649123.
• Cronin, Leroy; Krasnogor, Natalio; Davis, Benjamin G.; Alexander, Cameron; Robertson, Neil; Steinke, Joachim H. G.; Schroeder, Sven L. M.; Khlobystov, Andrei N.; Cooper, Geoff; Gardner, Paul M.; Siepmann, Peter (2006). "The imitation game—a computational chemical approach to recognizing life". Nature Biotechnology. 24 (10): 1203–1206. doi:10.1038/nbt1006-1203. ISSN 1546-1696. PMID 17033651. S2CID 4664573.

External links[]

• Finding Life by Looking for Complexity: Interview with Leroy Cronin about assembly theory on Planetary Radio broadcast, 30 June 2021.