Chemical origin of life

Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) underlies the formation of intracellular membraneless compartments in biology and may have played a role in the formation of protocells that concentrate key chemicals during the origins of life. While LLPS of simple systems, such as oil and water, is well understood, many aspects of LLPS in complex, out-of-equilibrium molecular systems remain elusive. Here, the author discusses open questions and recent insights related to the formation, function and fate of such condensates both in cell biology and protocell research.

The interactions of lipid bilayer cell membranes with liquid biomolecular condensates are key to many biological processes, including endocytosis. New research shows a model system of liposomes that are able to engulf droplets, effectively mimicking endocytosis.

A new proposal for the origin of asymmetry and, by extension, the origin of life uses spin-polarized electrons to induce enantioselective chemistry in the prebiotic world.

Amino-containing four-carbon threose nucleic acids (TNAs) have long been considered to be prebiotically irrelevant due to their difficult formation. Now, a prebiotically plausible route to 3′-amino-TNA nucleoside triphosphate has been developed, raising the possibility of 3′-amino-TNA as a non-canonical nucleic acid during the origin of life.

Explaining the controlled emergence and growth of molecular complexity at life’s origins is one of prebiotic chemistry’s grand challenges. Now, it has been shown that we can observe how the self-organization of a complex carbohydrate network can be modulated by its environment.

The emergence of protometabolic reactions that evolved into today’s metabolic pathways is unclear. Now, evidence suggests that the chemical origin of biological carbon metabolism may have relied on the versatility of a single primitive C₁ feedstock molecule — hydrogen cyanide.