Life as we know it would not exist without water. However, water molecules not only serve as a solvent and reactant but can also promote hydrolysis, which counteracts the formation of essential organic molecules. This conundrum constitutes one of the central issues in origin of life. Hydrolysis is an important part of energy metabolism for all living organisms but only because, inside cells, it is a controlled reaction. How could hydrolysis have been regulated under prebiotic settings? Lower water activities possibly provide an answer: geochemical sites with less free and more bound water can supply the necessary conditions for protometabolic reactions. Such conditions occur in serpentinising systems, hydrothermal sites that synthesise hydrogen gas via rock–water interactions. Here, we summarise the parallels between biotic and abiotic means of controlling hydrolysis in order to narrow the gap between biochemical and geochemical reactions and briefly outline how hydrolysis could even have played a constructive role at the origin of molecular self‐organisation.

中文翻译：

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水在生命起源中的矛盾作用

没有水，我们所知道的生命就不会存在。然而，水分子不仅可以作为溶剂和反应物，还可以促进水解，从而阻止必需有机分子的形成。这个难题构成了生命起源的核心问题之一。水解是所有生物体能量代谢的重要组成部分，但这仅仅是因为在细胞内部，它是一种受控反应。如何在益生元环境下调节水解？较低的水活动可能提供了一个答案：游离水较少和结合水较多的地球化学地点可以为原代谢反应提供必要的条件。这种情况发生在蛇纹石化系统中，即通过岩水相互作用合成氢气的热液场所。这里，