Meteorite-common amino acid induces clay exfoliation and abiotic compartment formation | Communications Earth & Environment

Communications Earth & Environment volume 6, Article number: 435 (2025) Cite this article

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Clay surfaces have been invoked as crucial components in the origin of life processes due to their ability to concentrate organics and abiotically catalyse (bio)polymer production. Still, the importance of the mutual nature of organo-clay interactions and the effects of off-world organics in this interplay is a largely unexplored realm. We demonstrate a previously unrecognised phenomenon that occurs upon the transient interaction of montmorillonite clay with the meteorite-common, non-proteinogenic γ-aminobutyric acid. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction show that an irreversible structural change is induced by the off-world species. A distinct partial clay exfoliation is correlated with the formation of nanoscale cavities in the mid-layers of the original structure, observable using transmission electron microscopy. This work demonstrates that an exogenous amino acid can alter clay and introduce 3D confined nano-environments, which may facilitate compartmentalisation in prebiotic times. Our findings also highlight new sustainable nanocomposite synthesis routes applicable in environmental/materials sciences.

The quest to decipher universal mechanisms for the origin of life on terrestrial planets is brought to the fore as we gain more knowledge of possible planetary environments in habitable zones beyond our Solar System1,2. One of the major hypotheses on the origin of life on Earth that remains viable is Darwin’s warm little pond. Set in Hadean times on Earth when the first landmasses started to form3,4,5, this warm pond would have enabled the interaction of organics and minerals in a shallow water environment undergoing wet-dry cycling6,7. It is well known that minerals such as clays, which are expected to be present on the early Earth8, have a great affinity to adsorb organic molecules9,10. For example, aluminosilicate swelling clays, particularly montmorillonite, can act as a sink for certain protein-forming (proteinogenic) amino acids11,12. This locally increases the amino acid concentration through adsorption often facilitating oligomerisation reactions6,13,14,15. Thus, clay-organic interactions have been invoked as a critical prelude to life in such a scenario.

The chemical inventory of the prebiotic environment is unknown, but during this primeval eon a fortitude of extraterrestrial, monomeric organic species were introduced to the ponds via significant meteoritic bombardment and dust influx5. The contribution of off-world organics is specifically relevant to the sub-aerial warm pond setting16,17. These off-world organics included both biologically-relevant molecules as well as species that have no to limited biological functionality18,19,20. At present, the ability of organic monomers to oligomerise in such an environment has focused on the generation of biologically critical molecules, e.g., including proteinogenic amino acids11,21,22. The presence of the meteorite-common23,24, non-proteinogenic amino acid γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and its interaction with catalytic clay is not often considered. This is due to a weak interaction of GABA with clays25,26 and the fact that it is not expected to constitute bio-relevant polymers. However, GABA induces mineralogical modifications in other aluminosilicate minerals such as zeolites27. Therefore, non-proteinogenic molecules such as GABA may indirectly influence processes that lead to the formation of molecules relevant to life.

Here we demonstrate that unlike previous exfoliation-related studies conducted with large organic species, among them lengthy amino acids and few-monomer long peptides28,29, the interaction of the small carbon-chain GABA with montmorillonite results in partial exfoliation of the clay. The untypical partial exfoliation process revealed in this study, produces nanoscale cavities reminiscent of compartment production. Though exfoliation is widely investigated in material sciences30,31,32, it has not been addressed in the field of origin of life. Compartmentalisation is a fundamental requirement of the prebiotic system to generate disequilibrium with the larger scale prebiotic chemical environment33. The formation of nanocavities in correlation with partial exfoliation by monomers that are not expected to form biologically relevant polymers within catalytic materials such as clays is therefore a critical and overlooked aspect of the warm pond environment.

The ability of clays to function as catalysts for prebiotic molecule formation depends on their structural characteristics and interaction capabilities with organic monomers. Thus, to elucidate the impact of GABA adsorption on the properties of montmorillonite we exposed the clay to specific concentrations of this amino acid for 2 h at 80 °C. The particles were then washed to remove excess GABA followed by drying and rehydrating the clay with water vapour to explore its swelling capacity. Loss of GABA FTIR bands after washing in the dehydrated exposed samples (Fig. 1a, Supplementary Fig. 1a, b) around 3028, 1579, 1398 and 1309 cm−134, and compared to the spectra of the washed liquids (Supplementary Fig. 2), demonstrates that GABA was effectively removed by water even at the highest concentration examined. Given the size of the clay platelets (≤2 μm in diameter and several 10 snm thickness) the IR beam is expected to penetrate the interlayer space. Thus, the absence of GABA peaks reflects the loss of GABA during washing both from the clay’s external surface as well as within the interlayer space. This corroborates previous findings that demonstrated a weak, transient physisorption of GABA at clay surfaces25,26. Despite GABA not being adsorbed, changes in the montmorillonite FTIR bands are preserved, indicating a structural alteration of the mineral (Fig. 1b).

Normalised ATR-FTIR spectra of dehydrated clay after interaction in MilliQ water without GABA (control, dot-dashed) and with 400 mM, 700 mM and 2 M GABA (light grey to black, respectively). Each spectrum is an average of three experimental repetitions, where the highlighted margins represent the standard deviation. Each spectrum is normalised to height of the fitted band (asterisk) at 519 cm−1. a OH (and NH) stretching region between 3000 and 3750 cm−1. b Mineral absorbance region for montmorillonite between 450 and 1250 cm−1. Band assignments35,36,38 based on Ca-montmorillonite (Mt) control are shown using dashed vertical lines. Str. = stretching, bend. = bending, oop. = out-of-plane. Position of stretching modes related to (c) Si–O–Al at 1100 cm−1: out-of-plane, and (d) Si–O–Si at 1000 cm−1: in-plane, as a function of initial GABA concentration for dehydrated GABA-exposed samples (solid line) and rehydrated samples (dashed line). These positions were obtained from second derivative analysis of individual Si–O band envelope between 980 and 1120 cm−1, then averaged where the error bars represent the standard deviation of the averaged position.

The swelling capacity of montmorillonite is one aspect that makes it a favourable candidate for prebiotic surface chemistry. Oligomerisation reactions of proteinogenic glycine are induced by wet-dry cycling temporarily lowering the local water activity6,13,14. Therefore, changes in the water activity associated with the clay would be an important characteristic that facilitates oligomerisation in the prebiotic environment. In the dehydrated samples, adsorbed water band intensity around 3400 cm−135,36 decreases with increasing GABA concentration (Fig. 1a). This indicates that less water is retained in the dehydrated clay after it was exposed to GABA and is consistent with the concomitant decrease in the OH bending of adsorbed water at 1640 cm−135,36 (Supplementary Fig. 1b) for the highest GABA concentration examined. Thus, the transient interaction with GABA influences the hydration behaviour associated with the clay.

In addition, changes are observed for the FTIR bands assigned to the Si and Al layers within the mineral35,36,37 (Fig. 1b). These stretching bands are sensitive to the state of the aluminosilicate network of the clay and their analysis was used in previous studies to examine, for example, its response to adsorption of water molecules38,39. Second derivative analysis of the Si-O band envelope between 980 and 1120 cm−1 shows that montmorillonite not exposed to GABA produced four distinct bands (vertical lines, Fig. 1b). Of these bands, the in-plane Si–O–Al stretching mode (Supplementary Fig. 1c) showed no change in its position upon GABA exposure, similarly to one of the in-plane Si–O–Si bands (Supplementary Fig. 1d). However, a significant red shift up to 14 cm−1 is found for the out-of-plane Si-O-Al band of the dehydrated samples with increasing GABA exposure (Fig. 1c). A small shift can be observed as well in the Si–O–Si in-plane stretching mode as a function of GABA concentration (Fig. 1d). These shifts indicate a structural change is induced by the interaction with GABA. This change is also reflected in a decrease in the intensities of the Al-OH-Al bending at 916 cm−1, the Al-OH-Fe bending at 886 cm−1, and the Al–OH–Mg and Fe–OH–Fe bending at 844 cm−1 (Fig. 1b). Reintroduction of water into the interlayer space (Supplementary Fig. 3, Supplementary Table 1) enhances the shift of the in-plane Si–O–Si mode (Fig. 1d, dashed line). In fact, a shift can already be observed at the lowest GABA concentration examined. Concomitantly, the frequency shift in the Si-O-Al out-of-plane direction that is observed for the dehydrated samples is effectively masked in the hydrated state (Fig. 1c, dashed line). The spectral behaviour suggests that the transient physisorption of GABA not only changes the hydration environment associated with the clays, but also efficiently disrupts the structural integrity of the mineral phase.

The disturbance of the mineral’s structure is found to be directly related to the [001] direction, which corresponds to the direction perpendicular to the alumina-silica layering in this mineral’s structure36. X-ray diffraction data demonstrates that loss of the d(001) peak upon dehydration is more pronounced in samples that were exposed to the 2 M GABA concentration (Fig. 2a). This reiterates the FTIR findings that GABA is not adsorbed nor retained in the interlayer space even at the highest GABA concentration examined, as the d(001) peak is further diminished after interaction with GABA. It further highlights that the change in water behaviour could be associated with the lower retention of interlayer water in these samples, both of which enables structural collapse in the [001] upon dehydration40. Critically, rehydration of the samples shows that the structural changes induced by GABA permanently affect the layer ordering and the swelling behaviour of the montmorillonite, where GABA-exposed samples exhibit a reduction in the recovery of the d(001) XRD peak intensity (Fig. 2 b, c). Although the area of the d(001) peak significantly decreases (Fig. 2c), the FWHM of the peak does not change as a function of the initial GABA concentration (Supplementary Fig. 4). No significant changes in other lattice directions are observed (Supplementary Fig. 5a, b). Loss of the d(001) XRD peak has been suggested to relate directly to (partial) exfoliation of the clay41 along the interlayer space and is consistent with a shift in the out-of-plane Si–O stretching vibrational mode42,43,44,45.

Shown are normalised XRD d(001) peaks of Ca-montmorillonite samples exposed to 2 M GABA (black) and control sample (dot-dashed grey), for (a) dehydrated and (b) rehydrated samples. Diffractograms are normalised to the area of a specific control sample’s d(105) diffraction peak in the range 34.5–39° (2θ) (Supplementary Fig. 5). The curves are generated by averaging diffractograms of experiment repetitions. The derived standard deviations are illustrated by highlighted margins around the curves. c Average area of rehydrated Ca-montmorillonite d(001) diffraction peaks as a function of initial GABA concentration, where the error bars represent the standard deviation.

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging of rehydrated samples not only confirms GABA-induced partial exfoliation takes place, but also highlights that it correlates with the creation of local, nanoscale cavities mid-layer within the aluminosilicate structure. Figures 3a, b show that unexposed Ca-montmorillonite exhibits features of ordered 2:1 aluminosilicate layers visible as equally spaced dark lines. In some images, these parallel planes have a small distortion in their spacing (Supplementary Fig. 6a). Remarkably, GABA exposure results in single or multiple nanocavities within a particle (Fig. 3c–f, Supplementary Fig. 7) that are significantly larger in size than the limited distortions that are observed in the control sample. The cavities are estimated to form in 30% of the grains we could observe in the TEM (Supplementary Table 2). Distortions of the layering (Supplementary Fig. 6b) occur in relation to the formation of cavities; the distortions appear more frequently after GABA exposure. The nanocavities have an average size of 2.94 ± 1.72 nm in the [001] direction, with the smallest and largest cavities possessing a respective size of 1.35 ± 0.20 nm and 6.30 ± 0.31 nm, respectively. Interestingly, the nanocavities are observed to occur mid-layer, predominantly embedded within the interior of the sheet structure, and not restricted to the edges where the sheets terminate (Fig. 3c–f).

a, b Control sample showing typical layering (white arrows) and its natural variability without GABA exposure. c–f Sample exposed to 2 M GABA, illustrating widespread disruptions that enhance variability and the manifestation of nanocavities (black arrows). Both samples had 18% water weight gain.

Our TEM imaging findings and the loss of d(001) intensity as a function of GABA concentration (Supplementary Fig. 5b) are consistent with increased frequency of distorted layered structures and partial exfoliation in montmorillonite due to GABA exposure. The nanocavity formation process is evident from the TEM measurements, a technique that enables examination of single particles, while XRD provides information about bulk behaviour only. Exfoliation has been observed with a range of clay materials and in the presence of larger organic molecules than GABA during the formation of polymer-clay nanocomposites31. Therefore, the nanocavity formation process observed here is expected to be a ubiquitous effect across a range of clay minerals. Unlike the previous material science literature, our results reveal that even the apparently weak and transient adsorption of an amino acid can induce exfoliation. Previous works do indicate the shift of the montmorillonite out-of-plane Si–O stretching band to 1085–1087 cm−1 due to exfoliation42,43,44,45; however unlike this work, in these cases when organics are used for exfoliation, the organic polymers causing the exfoliation are permanently incorporated in the clay (forming clay-polymer composites). For a more detailed comparison of different exfoliation methods and their effect on the IR signal of montmorillonite, the reader is referred to Supplementary Table 3. Previous works also report that exfoliation using larger molecules than GABA is associated with an increase in FWHMs of the XRD peaks due to micro-stresses or formation of particles smaller than 50 nm29,46. Here, however, we observe a different behaviour suggesting that the GABA-induced exfoliation of montmorillonite is inherently different compared to other, well-investigated, clay exfoliation mechanisms. Short carbon-chain amino acids (up to 8-carbons, 24 mM) with a terminal amino group are thought to lie flat within the interlayer space, limiting their ability to cause exfoliation28. Yet, our results demonstrate that this is not the case for GABA, opening up the possibility that other small-sized (exogenous) monomers with weak interactions with clays may also show similar exfoliant behaviour. This gives rise to a new perspective on the role of exogenously delivered material, which may introduce temporally higher concentrations of these types of species.

Importantly, due to the weak interaction, GABA can be very efficiently recycled. This is a critical aspect of the exfoliant behaviour because it implies that a single molecule could repeatedly damage the clay structure leading to a (local) self-amplification effect. This self-amplification, together with its occurrence positioned mid-layer, effectively enables the creation of compartments. In prebiotic environments, even low organic concentrations (presumably only up to hundreds of μM)47 would not be a limiting factor for the efficacy of this process, especially for longer time scales. Indeed, within just 2 h at GABA concentrations of 100 mM this effect is already visible in the FTIR spectra (Fig. 1d). Similarly, for the synthesis of nanocomposite materials used for a wide array of applications, easy recycling of GABA through washing would create cheap and sustainable methods to induce exfoliation and open the structure of clays for further functionalisation.

The amino acid induced clay nanocavities (average 2.94 ± 1.72 nm) allow for compartmentalised chemical environments different from their surroundings. Considering the physicochemical conditions that can exist in 3D nanocavities, computational work has shown that nanopores can hold bound, unfreezable water up to a pore size of 2.3 ± 0.1 nm48. Reaction properties in nanoconfined systems are related to the size of the confined region49, therefore the conditions in the 3D confined cavities are expected to dramatically differ from those of the 2D interlayer space and of the external environment. It has been demonstrated that in 3D nanoconfinement water activity is low enough to facilitate polymerisation reactions50. Additionally, changes in confined water properties are predicted to result in significant chemical differences that cause gas oversolubility as well as changes in content of dissolved species within the interlayer space49,51. Altogether, this positions the newly formed 3D nanocavities in a perpetual non-equilibrium state, a required starting point for many life-relevant processes33. We therefore hypothesise that the confined nanocavities in clay could act as some of the first prebiotic compartments. Moreover, these nanocavities can signify a missing link between compartmentalisation and non-enzymatic polymerisation. This spatial conjugation between polymerisation and compartmentalisation within clay media opens up new possibilities and advancements in the origin of life research. Furthermore, nanocavity formation in clay is, hypothetically, not restricted to terrestrial settings but might also occur in clay media in cometary/asteroid environments. This might have far-reaching consequences as to where and when coupled chemical compartmentalisation/complexification processes can occur across the universe.

Our work demonstrates the formation of nanoscale cavities in clay which is correlated with partial exfoliation, caused by the amino acid GABA. The findings of this study exemplify that irreversible structural changes in clay are induced by interaction with a meteorite-common, non-proteinogenic, weakly-interacting species that is not expected to undergo polymerisation, but instead creates 3D nanocompartments. This sheds a new light on the possible significance of off-world organics, which possess a relatively high abundance of GABA and other exotic amino acids. It also demonstrates the need to revisit the role of clays beyond the synthesis of life’s building blocks, and explore their role in prebiotic compartmentalisation. Apart from the field of origin of life, the unique exfoliant behaviour uncovered in this work introduces sustainable clay alteration possibilities for various applications in environmental, material and surface sciences. These include, among others; layered crystal engineering, toxic waste storage/management, soil treatment, development of Van-der-Waals heterostructures and diverse applications in the emerging field of nanogeochemistry.

Calcium montmorillonite STx-1b source clay was purchased from the Clay Mineral Society, USA. The chemical formula of STx-1b is (Si7.753Al0.247)(Al3.281Mg0.558Fe0.136Ti0.024Mn0.002)(Ca0.341Na0.039K0.061)O20(OH)4 and the cation exchange capacity value is 66.1 ± 2.1 100 meq/100 gr36. The fine clay fraction with a diameter ≤2 μm was separated by sedimentation in ultrapure Milli-Q water (18.2 MΩ cm @25 °C, 1.5 ppb TOC), where the settling velocity was calculated according to Stokes law. After sedimentation, the clay was dried in an oven at 180 °C in air for at least one week. The sedimentation procedure was confirmed successful using scanning electron microscopy. The fine clay fraction was then used throughout the experiments. γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) (≥99%) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich and used without further purification.

Ca-montmorillonite-GABA suspensions were prepared in the following fashion: GABA solutions (100 mM, 400 mM, 700 mM, 1 M and 2 M) in Milli-Q water were added to Ca-montmorillonite (ratio of 3 mL solution per 100 mg clay). The pH of the GABA solutions was not adjusted. The control experiments with Ca-montmorillonite water suspension were conducted with Milli-Q water, thus did not contain any GABA. All suspensions were stirred at a rate of 650 rpm whilst retained at 80 °C for 2 h (’suspension-adsorption’ step) in 10 mL glass vials that were loosely covered with pierced aluminium foil to prevent water evaporation. The suspensions were then separated by centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 5 min and the supernatant was collected. The remaining solid clay samples were washed twice by re-suspending the solids in Milli-Q water (about 5 mL), followed by shaking at 1000 rpm for 15 min, after which the samples were centrifuged at 2500 rpm for 5 min, enabling the collection of the washed supernatants (Supplementary Fig. 2). The twice-washed solid clay samples were dehydrated at 120 °C in an oven with the fan function on (i.e. under flowing air) for 163 h and 40 min (samples that have undergone this treatment are referred to as ’exposed samples’). Three separate experimental repetitions of the suspension-adsorption procedure followed by washes and dehydration, as described above, were performed on different occasions. For two of these repetitions, that took place at two consecutive days, the same GABA 2 M stock solution was used. The third repetition, which took place at a later occasion, required the preparation of a new stock solution. The pH of the GABA solutions was measured at room temperature using a Mettler-Toledo pH probe calibrated with standard solutions (Supplementary Table 4).

Rehydration procedure: Dehydrated solid samples of control and GABA-exposed Ca-montmorillonite were rehydrated by humidification with water vapour generated from MilliQ water in a sealed box until a weight gain of about 15–30% was measured (so-called ’rehydrated samples’). Two rehydration sets were performed, using GABA-exposed and control Ca-montmorillonite samples from two respective experimental repetitions. The humidification time was 24 h for the first set and 6 h for the second set. For each rehydrated clay sample, the ratio of weight of adsorbed water to weight of dehydrated clay (’adsorbed water weight gain’) was calculated (Supplementary Table 1).

ATR-FTIR measurements were carried out using a Perkin Elmer FT-IR spectrometer “Frontier" with a “GladiATR" mount (Pike technologies). The ATR mount was connected to a nitrogen/air flow in over-pressure starting at least 30 min before measuring. The measurements of solid samples were carried out with a resolution of 2 cm−1 (data interval 0.5 cm−1), and were a composite of 64 scans that were accumulated over a spectral range of 450–4000 cm−1 at room temperature. A background scan was collected before each solid sample measurement. The measurements of liquid samples were carried out using the same resolution, but by accumulating 8 scans in the spectral range of 450–4000 cm−1 at room temperature. A background scan was collected after every 4–5 liquid samples.

Baseline subtraction was carried out by first identifying the baseline using a linear fit of spectral ranges in which no absorbance bands were expected nor observed, namely between 2400–2800 cm−1 and 3800–4000 cm−1. The linear fit was then subtracted from the entire spectrum. Peak position determination was performed using second derivative analysis39. To obtain a usable second derivative plot it was necessary to smooth the data within our regions of interest, a common practise for this type of analysis52,53. The data was smoothed using a second-order Savitsky-Golay filter54 with a 31-point window. This allowed us to calculate the first derivative curve, which was also smoothed in the same manner, to determine the second derivative plot of each spectrum. The points that define a minimum in this plot correspond to absorbance-band positions and were identified using a Matlab script. The peak finding procedure was applied to the (greater range of the) Si–O stretching band envelope at 885–1285 cm−1 and to the range of 450–660 cm−1, that includes the Si–O–Al bending mode at 519 cm−1 selected for normalisation. The 519 cm−1 mode was selected as it represents the in-plane vibrational mode furthest from the interlayer space, that is assumed to be least affected by interactions of the basal siloxane surfaces. For intensity-normalisation to this mode, a fitting procedure employed Gaussian functions at the derived band positions (including position uncertainty of ±4 cm−1 for dehydrated samples and ±6 cm−1 for rehydrated samples) in the range of 450–660 cm−1 with band widths of 26 ± 4 cm−1. The final spectra are averaged spectra of available experimental repetitions with the standard deviation as a function of frequency displayed as highlighted margins around the averaged curves55.

pXRD measurements were carried out using a Rigaku MiniFlex II diffractometer with a Ni-filtered Cu Kα source (λ = 1.540562 Å) operated at a voltage of 30 kV and a current of 15 mA. For X-ray detection, a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector with a Be window of diameter ϕ23 mm and length of 80 mm was used. A single-crystal silicon low background sample holder with a 0.2 mm deep and 8 mm diameter cavity was used. Powder samples were ground then pressed into the cavity in the sample holder to create a flat and uniform surface, excess material was removed. All measurements were carried out in the range of 3–40° (2θ). In the ranges of 3–10° (2θ) and 34–40° (2θ), measurements were carried out in 0.01° resolution with a scanning rate of 0.5°/min. In the range of 10–34° (2θ) they were carried out typically in 0.05° resolution and rate of 2.5°/min, and for a few samples in resolution of 0.01° and rate of 0.5°/min.

Background measurements that were gathered on the same day as the sample measurements were smoothed using a 21-point moving average and subtracted from each diffractogram. Diffraction data obtained with a resolution of 0.01° were binned to 0.05° resolution to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. The diffractograms were area normalised to the Ca-montmorillonite d(105) peak in the range of 34–39.5° (2θ) of one of the control samples. Normalisation was conducted separately for the GABA-exposed and rehydrated clay data sets. The montmorillonite d(105) peak was chosen for normalisation in all cases, as it was well-resolved, independent of the cristobalite fraction present in the natural clay sample, and did not change shape and position for different samples (also in the raw data). The final diffractograms are averaged diffractograms of available experimental repetitions with the standard deviation as a function of the 2θ value displayed as highlighted margins around the averaged curves55. The d(001) diffraction peaks of Ca-montmorillonite were fitted to Lorentzian functions56 of the form \(y={P}_{1}/({(x-{P}_{2})}^{2}+{P}_{3})+C\) in the range of 4–8° (2θ). The FWHM of each Ca-montmorillonite d(001) peak was derived using the fit parameter P3 according to \(FWHM=\sqrt{4{P}_{3}(1+s)}\) (following Eq. (21) in ref. 57), where s is the asymmetry factor, chosen to have a value of 0.5 for all peaks. The area of each Ca-montmorillonite d(001) peak was obtained by integrating over the fitted Lorentzian function.

TEM imaging was performed using a Thermo Fischer TFS Talos F200X S(TEM) instrument, at an accelerating voltage of 200 kV. Rehydrated Ca-montmorillonite samples (control and 2 M GABA-altered) with 18% weight gain due to water adsorption were examined. To prepare these samples for the TEM analysis, the samples were ground for a few seconds with an agate pestle and mortar and loaded onto a 3 mm carbon film-supported copper 400 mesh TEM grid in powder form by dipping the grid in the powder. The samples were stored in a closed TEM grid box and kept for nine days in a desiccator before the day of the measurement. TEM images were systematically acquired by selecting a grain at random and following the edges of the grain, taking an image wherever several clay layers were visible. Image analysis was performed using ImageJ program. We analysed 20 layered structures of the 2 M GABA-altered sample and 14 layered structures of the control sample (Supplementary Table 2). To determine average basal spacing for each sample, we analysed images exhibiting both ordered and distorted layered structures, excluding cavities. To quantify the occurrences where ordered vs. distorted layered structures appeared, we manually selected and categorised all the available TEM images where at least 4−5 adjacent layers were clearly visible (not including image multiplicity). For ordered/distorted categorisation, in cases where a distorted layered structure was observed the image was counted as ’distorted’ even if an ordered structure was present at another part of that image (i.e. not counting a single image twice). This was performed for both control and 2 M GABA-altered rehydrated samples. Cavity size determination was performed by measuring the cavity size in the [001] direction ten times for the same cavity and calculating the average and standard deviation. A total number of six cavities were analysed, observed in thirteen different images.

The attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy data that support the findings of this study are available in the FigShare public repository with the identifier: 10.21942/uva.28944374.

The codes used to analyse the attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction data in this study are available in the FigShare public repository with the identifier: 10.21942/uva.28944374.

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A.P. and H.E.K. disclose support for the research of this work from NWO grant of the Planetary and Exoplanetary Science programme (PEPSc.19.009). The authors thank Dr. O. Lugier and the Functional Materials lab of Dr. S. Grecea (UvA) for training and the use of their XRD instrument, Dr. G. Giubertoni (UvA) for support in IR spectra analysis, D. van Erp (UvA) for support in the lab, Dr. M. Hamers (UU) and the Electron Microscopy Centre at Utrecht University for facilitating the TEM measurements.

Helen E. King

Present address: MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Leobener Str. 8, Bremen, 28359, Germany

These authors jointly supervised this work: Annemieke Petrignani, Helen E. King.

Molecular Photonics, Van ’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, Amsterdam, 1098 XH, The Netherlands

Orr Rose Bezaly & Annemieke Petrignani

Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8a, Utrecht, 3584 CB, The Netherlands

Orr Rose Bezaly & Helen E. King

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O.R.B. conducted the experiments, performed the data analysis and wrote the first draft. H.E.K. and A.P. designed the research plan. All authors were involved in the design and writing as well as the discussion of the data, its interpretation, and implications. This publication reflects the combined efforts of all authors throughout the writing process.

Correspondence to Annemieke Petrignani.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Communications Earth & Environment thanks Francois Guyot, Martin McCoustra and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Brittany Cymes, Joe Aslin and Mengjie Wang. [A peer review file is available].

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Bezaly, O.R., Petrignani, A. & King, H.E. Meteorite-common amino acid induces clay exfoliation and abiotic compartment formation. Commun Earth Environ 6, 435 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02417-8

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Received: 16 September 2024

Accepted: 23 May 2025

Published: 05 June 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02417-8

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