On the origin of genomes and cells within inorganic compartments.
Building on the model of Russell and Hall for the emergence of life at a warm submarine hydrothermal vent, we suggest that, within a hydrothermally formed system of contiguous iron-sulfide (FeS) compartments, populations of virus-like RNA molecules, which eventually encoded one or a few proteins each, became the agents of both variation and selection. The initial darwinian selection was for molecular self-replication. Combinatorial sorting of genetic elements among compartments would have resulted in preferred proliferation and selection of increasingly complex molecular ensembles--those compartment contents that achieved replication advantages. The last universal common ancestor ( LUCA) we propose was not free-living but an inorganically housed assemblage of expressed and replicable genetic elements. The evolution of the enzymatic systems for (i) DNA replication; and (ii) membrane and cell wall biosynthesis, enabled independent escape of the first archaebacterial and eubacterial cells from their hydrothermal hatchery, within which the LUCA itself remained confined.[1]References
- On the origin of genomes and cells within inorganic compartments. Koonin, E.V., Martin, W. Trends Genet. (2005) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg