Membraneless polyester microdroplets as primordial compartments at the origins of life
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60461373%3A22340%2F19%3A43918701" target="_blank" >RIV/60461373:22340/19:43918701 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15830.short" target="_blank" >https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15830.short</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1902336116" target="_blank" >10.1073/pnas.1902336116</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Membraneless polyester microdroplets as primordial compartments at the origins of life
Original language description
Compartmentalization was likely essential for primitive chemical systems during the emergence of life, both for preventing leakage of important components, i.e., genetic materials, and for enhancing chemical reactions. Although life as we know it uses lipid bilayer-based compartments, the diversity of prebiotic chemistry may have enabled primitive living systems to start from other types of boundary systems. Here, we demonstrate membraneless compartmentalization based on prebiotically available organic compounds, α-hydroxy acids (αHAs), which are generally copro-duced along with α-amino acids in prebiotic settings. Facile polymerization of αHAs provides a model pathway for the assembly of combinatorially diverse primitive compartments on early Earth. We characterized membraneless microdroplets generated from homo- and heteropolyesters synthesized from drying solutions of αHAs endowed with various side chains. These compartments can preferentially and differentially segregate and compartmentalize fluorescent dyes and fluorescently tagged RNA, providing readily available compartments that could have facilitated chemical evolution by protecting, exchanging, and encapsulating primitive components. Protein function within and RNA function in the presence of certain droplets is also preserved, suggesting the potential relevance of such droplets to various origins of life models. As a lipid amphiphile can also assemble around certain droplets, this further shows the droplets’ potential compatibility with and scaffolding ability for nascent biomolecular systems that could have coexisted in complex chemical systems. These model compartments could have been more accessible in a “messy” prebiotic environment, enabling the localization of a variety of protometabolic and replication processes that could be subjected to further chemical evolution before the advent of the Last Universal Common Ancestor. © 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
10404 - Polymer science
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2019
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
ISSN
0027-8424
e-ISSN
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Volume of the periodical
116
Issue of the periodical within the volume
32
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
6
Pages from-to
15830-15835
UT code for WoS article
000478971900018
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85070222698