posted on 2019-02-15, 00:00authored byClaudia Bonfio, Cécile Caumes, Colm D. Duffy, Bhavesh H. Patel, Claudia Percivalle, Maria Tsanakopoulou, John D. Sutherland
The main aim of origins
of life research is to find a plausible
sequence of transitions from prebiotic chemistry to nascent biology.
In this context, understanding how and when phospholipid membranes
appeared on early Earth is critical to elucidating the prebiotic pathways
that led to the emergence of primitive cells. Here we show that exposing
glycerol-2-phosphate to acylating agents leads to the formation of
a library of acylglycerol-phosphates. Medium-chain acylglycerol-phosphates
were found to self-assemble into vesicles stable across a wide range
of conditions and capable of retaining mono- and oligonucleotides.
Starting with a mixture of activated carboxylic acids of different
lengths, iterative cycling of acylation and hydrolysis steps allowed
for the selection of longer-chain acylglycerol-phosphates. Our results
suggest that a selection pathway based on energy-dissipative cycling
could have driven the selective synthesis of phospholipids on early
Earth.