Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology , Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Francis Crick Avenue , Cambridge CB2 0QH , United Kingdom.
J Am Chem Soc. 2019 Mar 6;141(9):3934-3939. doi: 10.1021/jacs.8b12331. Epub 2019 Feb 22.
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.
生命起源研究的主要目的是找到从前生物化学到新生生物学的合理转变序列。在这种情况下，了解磷脂膜何时以及如何出现在早期地球上对于阐明导致原始细胞出现的前生物途径至关重要。在这里，我们表明，使甘油-2-磷酸与酰化剂接触会导致酰基甘油磷酸酯库的形成。发现中链酰基甘油磷酸酯可以自组装成在广泛条件下稳定的囊泡，并且能够保留单核苷酸和寡核苷酸。从不同长度的活化羧酸混合物开始，酰化和水解步骤的迭代循环允许选择长链酰基甘油磷酸酯。我们的结果表明，基于能量耗散循环的选择途径可能已经在早期地球上驱动了磷脂的选择性合成。
