A biointerface effect on the self-assembly of ribonucleic acids: a possible mechanism of RNA polymerisation in the self-replication cycle

Nanoscale ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 6691-6698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noriyoshi Arai ◽  
Yusei Kobayashi ◽  
Kenji Yasuoka
Keyword(s):  
Cell Membrane ◽  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Replication Cycle ◽  
The Self ◽  
Primitive Earth ◽  
Ribonucleic Acids ◽  
Bulk System ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Self Replication

The self-assembly was found to be more favoured in a vesicle-cell membrane, rather than in the bulk system. The result will contribute to a better understanding of the origin of life on the primitive Earth.

scholarly journals The origin of life: the first self-replicating molecules were nucleotides

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Ohsaka
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Clay Minerals ◽  
The Self ◽  
Rna Molecules ◽  
Simulated Environments ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Prebiotic Earth ◽  
Self Replication

Difficulties to synthesize RNA nucleotides from their subunits in modern labs under simulated environments leads us to propose a possible process for the synthesis by cross complimentary self-replication with help of clay minerals, which might be operated on prebiotic Earth. Clay minerals are known to be good catalysts and certainly existed on prebiotic Earth. The self-replication of RNA nucleotides (monomers) may be considered as the origin of potential self-replication of some extant RNA polymers, and also the reason for homochirality of RNA molecules.

How Did It All Begin?: The Self-Assembly of Organic Molecules and the Origin of Cellular Life

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 179-194
Author(s):  
David W. Deamer
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Organic Molecules ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Cellular Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Origin Of Life

Movies are the myths of late-20th century western culture. Because of the power of films likeETto capture our imagination, we are more likely than past generations to accept the possibility that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy. Such a myth can be used to sketch the main themes of this chapter, which concern the origin of life on the Earth.

scholarly journals The origin of life: the first self-replicating molecules were nucleotides

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Ohsaka
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Clay Minerals ◽  
The Self ◽  
Rna Molecules ◽  
Simulated Environments ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Prebiotic Earth ◽  
Self Replication

Difficulties to synthesize RNA nucleotides from their subunits in modern labs under simulated environments leads us to propose a possible process for the synthesis by cross complimentary self-replication with help of clay minerals, which might be operated on prebiotic Earth. Clay minerals are known to be good catalysts and certainly existed on prebiotic Earth. The self-replication of RNA nucleotides (monomers) may be considered as the origin of potential self-replication of some extant RNA polymers, and also the reason for homochirality of RNA molecules.

scholarly journals An optimal degree of physical and chemical heterogeneity for the origin of life?

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1580) ◽  
pp. 2894-2901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack W. Szostak
Keyword(s):  
Nucleic Acid ◽  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Reaction Products ◽  
Amphiphilic Molecules ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Chemical Inputs ◽  
Physical And Chemical

The accumulation of pure, concentrated chemical building blocks, from which the essential components of protocells could be assembled, has long been viewed as a necessary, but extremely difficult step on the pathway to the origin of life. However, recent experiments have shown that moderately increasing the complexity of a set of chemical inputs can in some cases lead to a dramatic simplification of the resulting reaction products. Similarly, model protocell membranes composed of certain mixtures of amphiphilic molecules have superior physical properties than membranes composed of single amphiphiles. Moreover, membrane self-assembly under simple and natural conditions gives rise to heterogeneous mixtures of large multi-lamellar vesicles, which are predisposed to a robust pathway of growth and division that simpler and more homogeneous small unilamellar vesicles cannot undergo. Might a similar relaxation of the constraints on building block purity and homogeneity actually facilitate the difficult process of nucleic acid replication? Several arguments suggest that mixtures of monomers and short oligonucleotides may enable the chemical copying of polynucleotides of sufficient length and sequence complexity to allow for the emergence of the first nucleic acid catalysts. The question of the origin of life may become less daunting once the constraints of overly well-defined laboratory experiments are appropriately relaxed.

scholarly journals A network theory of the origin of life

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey W. Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
High Probability ◽  
Volcanic Ash ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Nucleation Event ◽  
Primitive Earth ◽  
Low Probability ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Non Coding Rnas

AbstractThe origin of life may have been a low probability event that involved both RNA and polypeptides. While such an event would occur with low probability, the probability is not too low in the context of the number of nucleation opportunities on the primitive Earth. The probability for the nucleation event is too small if needed components occur as frequently as disruptive components do, without specific interactions between the two classes. However, if many of the needed components contribute by inhibiting otherwise disruptive components, a high probability for a complex nucleation as the beginning of life event emerges. RNA interference and long non-coding RNAs are ascribed roles in inhibiting components that would otherwise be disruptive in the context of a nucleation event. The theory likewise provides an inhibitory role for the large fraction of proteins (35% to 40%) that have no known function in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. It is suggested that volcanic ash could provide the large number of random shapes needed as the basis for the nucleation event. Experiments based on that hypothesis are proposed.

scholarly journals Evidence for Phase Transitions in Replication Fidelity and Survival Probability at the Origin of Life

BioCosmos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-10
Author(s):  
Sy Garte
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Survival Probability ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cellular Phenotype ◽  
Replication Fidelity ◽  
Chemical Complexity ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Self Replication ◽  
Transition Approach

Abstract Highly accurate self-replication of cellular phenotype is a requirement for biological evolution. I previously investigated the degree of self-replication fidelity needed in a viable, evolving population of living cells. Here I present a phase transition approach from non-living chemical complexity to evolving living creatures and illustrate the necessary non-continuity of whatever process led to the origin of evolution. A theoretical approach to the relationship between replication fidelity, survival probability and the capacity to grow and evolve is presented consistent with previous data from experimental simulations. The implications for the origin of life to include explanations for non-continuity are discussed.

scholarly journals Getting Beyond the Toy Domain. Meditations on David Deamer’s “Assembling Life”

Life ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
William Bains
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Assembling ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Worth Reading ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Volcanic Islands ◽  
Hydrothermal Fields ◽  
Solar Astronomy

David Deamer has written another book, Assembling Life, on the origin of life. It is unapologetically polemic, presenting Deamer’s view that life originated in fresh water hydrothermal fields on volcanic islands on early Earth, arguing that this provided a unique environment not just for organic chemistry but for the self-assembling structure that drive that chemistry and form the basis of structure in life. It is worth reading, it is an advance in the field, but is it convincing? I argue that the Origin of Life field as a whole is unconvincing, generating results in Toy Domains that cannot be scaled to any real world scenario. I suggest that, by analogy with the history of artificial intelligence and solar astronomy, we need much more scale, and fundamentally new ideas, to take the field forward.

Proliferating droplets formed via prebiotic polymerisation: the missing link between chemistry and biology on the origin of life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muneyuki Matsuo ◽  
Kensuke Kurihara
Keyword(s):  
Phase Separation ◽  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Primitive Cell ◽  
Material Development ◽  
Steady Growth ◽  
Prebiotic Molecules ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Acid Thioesters ◽  
Liquid Liquid Phase Separation

Abstract The hypothesis that prebiotic molecules were transformed into polymers that evolved into proliferating molecular assemblages and eventually a primitive cell was first proposed about a hundred years ago. However, no proliferating model prebiotic system has yet been realised because different conditions are required for polymer generation and self-assembly of polymers. In this study, we identified conditions suitable for concurrent peptide generation and self-assembly, and we showed how a proliferating peptide-based droplet could be created by using synthesised amino acid thioesters as prebiotic monomers. Oligopeptides generated from the monomers spontaneously formed droplets through liquid–liquid phase separation in water. The droplets underwent a steady growth–division cycle by periodic addition of monomers through autocatalytic self-reproduction. Heterogeneous enrichment of RNA and lipids within droplets enabled RNA to protect the droplet from dissolution by lipids. These results provide experimental platforms for origin-of-life research and open up novel directions in peptide-based material development.

scholarly journals Nerves, Vibration and the Aeolian Harp

2009 ◽  
pp. 0 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Trower
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Physical World ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Optical Instruments ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Human Nervous System

Abstract This essay examines how the Aeolian harp functions as a model for the workings of the human nervous system as understood in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It sets out the scientific contexts – ranging from Hartleyan associationism to medical theories regarding the origin of life – that informed, in particular, two of Coleridge’s best-known poems: “The Aeolian Harp” and “Dejection: An Ode.” The essay provides a materialist account of mind, emphasising its inseparability from the body and physical world, as a corrective to the tendency in past criticism to overemphasize the transcendental aspect of the Romantic worldview and its attendant poetics. Further, it develops the insights of critics such as Jonathan Crary who have previously focused on optical instruments and vision by turning instead to a sonorous model for the self.

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