Related papers: A Prerequisite for Life
Life is commonly described as a self-organized, far-from-equilibrium process that maintains internal order by consuming free energy and exporting entropy. This thermodynamic view underlies diverse theoretical frameworks -- from autopoiesis…
Cellular life requires the presence of a set of biochemical mechanisms in order to maintain a predictable process of growth and division. Several attempts have been made towards the building of minimal protocells from a top-down approach,…
An important transition after the origin of life was the first emergence of a Darwinian population, self-reproducing entities exhibiting differential reproduction, phenotypic variation, and inheritance of phenotypic traits. The simplest…
One of the chief paradoxes of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) is that it is an essential requirement for multicellular eukaryotes on Earth while simultaneously posing a threat to their survival via the formation of reactive oxygen species. In this…
Bacteria commonly live in structured communities that affect human health and influence ecological systems. Heterogeneous populations, such as motile and non-motile populations, often coexist in bacteria communities. Motile subpopulations…
Some microbes appear to be able to metabolize in glacial ice or permafrost. The rate depends on temperature, nutrient level, and bioelement availability, among other factors. I have developed a plausible argument that they do this while…
The intricacy and diversity inherent in living organisms present a formidable obstacle to the establishment of a universally accepted definition. Life manifests in a multitude of forms, exhibiting various attributes such as growth,…
Many models for the origin of life have focused on understanding how evolution can drive the refinement of a preexisting enzyme, such as the evolution of efficient replicase activity. Here we present a model for what was, arguably, an even…
We study two mechanisms for the formation of protein patterns near membranes of living cells by mathematical modelling. Self-assembly of protein domains by electrostatic lipid-protein interactions is contrasted with self-organization due to…
We consider a generic proto-cell model consisting of any conservative chemical reaction network embedded within a membrane. The membrane results from the self-assembly of one of the chemical species (membrane precursor) and is…
Photosynthetic microbes have evolved and successfully adapted to the ever-changing environmental conditions in complex microhabitats throughout almost all ecosystems on Earth. In the absence of light, they can sustain their biological…
Self-assembly is a ubiquitous process in synthetic and biological systems, broadly defined as the spontaneous organization of multiple subunits (e.g. macromolecules, particles) into ordered multi-unit structures. The vast majority of…
Understanding protein self-assembly is important for many biological and industrial processes. Proteins can self-assemble into crystals, filaments, gels, and other amorphous aggregates. The final forms include virus capsids and condensed…
A continuous route from a disordered soup of simple chemical feedstocks to a functional protocell -- a compartment that metabolizes, grows, and propagates -- remains elusive. Here, we show that a homogeneous aqueous chemical mixture…
Cellular functions are established through biological evolution, but are constrained by the laws of physics. For instance, the physics of protein folding limits the lengths of cellular polypeptide chains. Consequently, many cellular…
The self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules usually takes place in a liquid phase, near room temperature. Here, using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments performed in real time, we show that freezing of aqueous solutions of…
Element synthesis which started with p-p chain has resulted in several specific characteristics including lack of any stable isotope having atomic masses 5 or 8. The carbon to oxygen ratio is fixed early by the chain of coincidences. These,…
Organisms leave a distinctive chemical signature in their environment because they synthesize those molecules that maximize their fitness. As a result, the relative concentrations of related chemical monomers in life-bearing environmental…
The peptides in biosystems are homochiral polymers of L-amino acids, but razemisate slowly by an active isomerization kinetics. The chemical reactions in biosystems are, however, reversible and what racemisates the peptides at the water…
The building of minimal self-reproducing systems with a physical embodiment (generically called protocells) is a great challenge, with implications for both theory and applied sciences. Although the classical view of a living protocell…