Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, College of Life Sciences, Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR) and Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center (BIOPIC), Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
Sci China Life Sci. 2018 Oct;61(10):1266-1273. doi: 10.1007/s11427-018-9362-y. Epub 2018 Aug 27.
Distinguishing things from beings, or matters from lives, is a fundamental question. Extending E. Schrödinger's neg-entropy and I. Prigogine's dissipative structure, we propose a chemical kinetic view that the earliest "live" process is embedded essentially in a special interaction between a pair of specific components under a particular, corresponding environmental conditions. The interaction exists as an inter-molecular-force-bond complex (IMFBC) that couples two separate chemical processes: one is the spontaneous formation of the IMFBC driven by a decrease of Gibbs free energy as a dissipative process; while the other is the disassembly of the IMFBC driven thermodynamically by free energy input from the environment. The two chemical processes coupled by the IMFBC originated independently and were considered non-living on Earth, but the IMFBC coupling of the two can be considered as the earliest form of metabolism: the first landmark on the path from things to a being. The dynamic formation and disassembly of the IMFBC, as a composite individual, follows a principle designated as "… structure for energy for structure for energy…", the cycle continues; and for short it will be referred to as "structure for energy cycle". With additional features derived from this starting point, the IMFBC-centered "live" process spontaneously evolved into more complex living organisms with the characteristics currently known.
区分事物和存在，或者物质和生命，是一个基本问题。我们扩展了薛定谔的负熵和普里高津的耗散结构理论，提出了一种化学动力学观点，即最早的“生命”过程本质上嵌入在一对特定组件在特定的相应环境条件下的特殊相互作用中。这种相互作用表现为一个分子间力键复合物（IMFBC），它将两个独立的化学过程耦合在一起：一个是由吉布斯自由能减少驱动的 IMFBC 的自发形成，这是一个耗散过程；另一个是由环境中自由能输入驱动的 IMFBC 的热力学解体。由 IMFBC 耦合的两个化学过程是独立起源的，在地球上被认为是非生命的，但 IMFBC 对两者的耦合可以被认为是新陈代谢的最早形式：从事物到存在的道路上的第一个里程碑。IMFBC 的动态形成和解体作为一个复合个体，遵循一个指定的原则，即“……为了能量构建结构，为了能量构建结构……”，循环继续；简称为“能量构建结构循环”。从这个起点衍生出更多的特征，以 IMFBC 为中心的“生命”过程自发地进化为具有当前已知特征的更复杂的生物体。
