Driving forces in the origins of life

Abstract

What were the physico-chemical forces that drove the origins of life? We discuss four major prebiotic ‘discoveries’: persistent sampling of chemical reaction space; sequence-encodable foldable catalysts; assembly of functional pathways; and encapsulation and heritability. We describe how a ‘proteins-first’ world gives plausible mechanisms. We note the importance of hydrophobic and polar compositions of matter in these advances.

The Bootstrap Model of Prebiotic Networks of Proteins and Nucleic Acids

“…We assume that nucleic acids polymerize to have chain length distributions that resemble most known polymerization processes [ 13 , 28 , 29 , 30 ], while peptides polymerize into differently shaped chain length distributions by virtue of their ability to collapse in water into compact—sometimes uniquely folded—structures and have sequence-dependent abilities for functionality. We accept that peptides are hydrophobic–polar (HP) polymers given by the previously elucidated foldamer hypothesis [ 13 , 31 ].…”

Nanoscale Catalyst Chemotaxis Can Drive the Assembly of Functional Pathways

“…An additional effect that could boost the size of the ProRec localization is the existence of a direct interaction between the A and B molecules, something we have not considered to this point. These types of cat–cat attractions are hypothesized to be important for the origin of life. , In Figure b, we have plotted the excess B close to the origin in four scenarios: (1) the uniform base case where there is no c 2 gradient, which we have scaled to 1, (2) the case where λ B = 3.8 nm, toward the upper end of its range, (3) the case where we add an attraction between A and B of the same size as the attraction between B and ② from the last scenario, and (4) the case where λ A 2 = 10λ B 2 . The reported results for the last three bars are the average enhancements over four different simulations of each condition.…”

“…For concreteness here, our descriptions will be expressed in terms of molecular-level events, where different catalyst molecules, such as enzymes or Janus colloids, act on some common small molecule that is the product of one catalyst and the substrate of the other one. We will call this particular producer–user recruitment setup, where both the producer and user are (macro)­molecule-scale catalysts organizing into a chemical pathway, the catpath mechanism, as in Dill and Agozzino . Here, we develop a model of the catpath mechanism that is motivated by earlier work. , This is related to, but different from, enzyme chemotaxis or enhanced diffusion, as we discuss at the end of the Results and Discussion section.…”

“…We will call this particular producer–user recruitment setup, where both the producer and user are (macro)molecule-scale catalysts organizing into a chemical pathway, the catpath mechanism, as in Dill and Agozzino. 8 Here, we develop a model of the catpath mechanism that is motivated by earlier work. 7 , 9 This is related to, but different from, enzyme chemotaxis or enhanced diffusion, as we discuss at the end of the Results and Discussion section.…”

Quantitative elucidation of associations between nucleotide identity and physicochemical properties of amino acids and the functional insight

“…It was thought that the two alternative explanations could be compatible [22] . Pieces of evidence have been proposed to support these mechanistic explanations (stereo-chemical fit) [23] , [24] , [25] or theoretical speculations (selection constraints) [26] , [27] .…”