A Fission-fusion Origin for Life

Overview

Journal Orig Life Evol Biosph

Specialties Biology
Molecular Biology

Date 1998 Sep 22

PMID 9742727

Citations 23

Authors

V Norris

D J Raine

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

To develop a comprehensive 'cells-first' approach to the origin of life, we propose that protocells form spontaneously and that the fission and fusion of these protocells drives the dynamics of their evolution. The fitness criterion for this evolution is taken to be the the stability (conservation) of domains in the protocellular membrane as determined by non-covalent molecular associations between the amphiphiles of the membrane and a subset of the macromolecules in the protocell. In the presence of a source of free energy the macromolecular content of the protocell (co-)evolves as the result of (domain-dependent) membrane-catalysed polymerisation of the prebiotic constituents delivered to the protocell by fusion. The metabolism of the cell therefore (co-)evolves on a rugged fitness landscape. We indicate how domain evolution with the same fitness criterion can potentially give rise to coding. Membrane domains may therefore provide the link between protocells and the RNA/DNA-world.

Citing Articles

Hunting the Cell Cycle .

Norris V Life (Basel). 2024; 14(10).

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The transition from animal to human culture-simulating the social protocell hypothesis.

Andersson C, Czaran T Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2023; 378(1872):20210416.

PMID: 36688383 PMC: 9869448. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0416.

Generates in Bacteria and Other Living Systems.

Norris V Biology (Basel). 2021; 10(10).

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The Origin(s) of Cell(s): Pre-Darwinian Evolution from FUCAs to LUCA : To Carl Woese (1928-2012), for his Conceptual Breakthrough of Cellular Evolution.

Tang S J Mol Evol. 2021; 89(7):427-447.

PMID: 34173011 DOI: 10.1007/s00239-021-10014-4.

The Construction of Biological 'Inter-Identity' as the Outcome of a Complex Process of Protocell Development in Prebiotic Evolution.

Ruiz-Mirazo K, Shirt-Ediss B, Escribano-Cabeza M, Moreno A Front Physiol. 2020; 11:530.

PMID: 32547413 PMC: 7269143. DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2020.00530.

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