Kahana Amit, Maslov Svetlana, Lancet Doron
Dept. of Molecular Genetics, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel.
Chem Soc Rev. 2021 Nov 1;50(21):11741-11746. doi: 10.1039/d1cs00633a.
A widespread dogma asserts that life could not have emerged without biopolymers - RNA and proteins. However, the widely acknowledged implausibility of a spontaneous appearance and proliferation of these complex molecules in primordial messy chemistry casts doubt on this scenario. A proposed alternative is "Lipid-First", based on the evidence that lipid assemblies may spontaneously emerge in heterogeneous environments, and are shown to undergo growth and fission, and to portray autocatalytic self-copying. What seems undecided is whether lipid assemblies have protein-like capacities for stereospecific interactions, a of life processes. This Viewpoint aims to alleviate such doubts, pointing to growing experimental evidence that lipid aggregates possess dynamic surface configurations capable of stereospecific molecular recognition. Such findings help support a possible key role of lipids in seeding life's origin.
一种广泛流传的教条认为，如果没有生物聚合物——RNA和蛋白质，生命就不可能出现。然而，这些复杂分子在原始混乱化学环境中自发出现和增殖的普遍不可信性，让人对这种情况产生怀疑。一种提出的替代观点是“脂质优先”，这是基于脂质聚集体可能在异质环境中自发出现的证据，并且已表明其会经历生长和裂变，并呈现出自催化自我复制。尚未确定的是脂质聚集体是否具有类似于蛋白质的立体特异性相互作用能力，而这是生命过程的一个特征。这一观点旨在减轻此类疑虑，指出越来越多的实验证据表明脂质聚集体具有能够进行立体特异性分子识别的动态表面构型。这些发现有助于支持脂质在生命起源中可能发挥的关键作用。
