Chemical systems, chemical contiguity and the emergence of life

• Terrence P. Kee and
• Pierre-Alain Monnard

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 1551–1563, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.155

• environment; prebiotic synthesis; protocell; Review Introduction Research in the origins of life field or abiogenesis (emergence of life from non-life) attempts to answer a question that has fascinated humanity for millennia: Where do we come from? Whereas early attempts were more metaphysical in nature

• clear limitations when these various “prebiotic” molecular systems are to be consolidated in a single protocell model. Moreover, situations emerge where one line of experimental enquiry becomes at odds with another feature that is equally integral to the whole. An example of this involves the selection

• research groups have demonstrated their abilities to induce formation of evolved protocell systems. For instance, they have been shown to be capable of accumulating small molecules on their charged surfaces (electrostatic interactions) [49] or within pores and brines by thermophoresis and convection

Framing major prebiotic transitions as stages of protocell development: three challenges for origins-of-life research

• Ben Shirt-Ediss,
• Sara Murillo-Sánchez and
• Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 1388–1395, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.135

• Conceiving the process of biogenesis as the evolutionary development of highly dynamic and integrated protocell populations provides the most appropriate framework to address the difficult problem of how prebiotic chemistry bridged the gap to full-fledged living organisms on the early Earth. In this

• contribution we briefly discuss the implications of taking dynamic, functionally integrated protocell systems (rather than complex reaction networks in bulk solution, sets of artificially evolvable replicating molecules, or even these same replicating molecules encapsulated in passive compartments) as the

• experimental challenges aimed at constructing protocell systems made of a diversity of functionally coupled components and, thereby, at characterizing more precisely the type of prebiotic evolutionary dynamics that such protocells could engage in. Keywords: functional integration; origins of life; prebiotic