Joshi Manesh Prakash, Uday Ashwin, Rajamani Sudha
Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune, Pune, 411008, India.
Commun Chem. 2022 Nov 9;5(1):147. doi: 10.1038/s42004-022-00762-9.
Protoamphiphiles are prebiotically-plausible moieties that would have constituted protocell membranes on early Earth. Although prebiotic soup would have contained a diverse set of amphiphiles capable of generating protocell membranes, earlier studies were mainly limited to fatty acid-based systems. Herein, we characterize N-acyl amino acids (NAAs) as a model protoamphiphilic system. To the best of our knowledge, we report a new abiotic route in this study for their synthesis under wet-dry cycles from amino acids and monoglycerides via an ester-amide exchange process. We also demonstrate how N-oleoyl glycine (NOG, a representative NAA) results in vesicle formation over a broad pH range when blended with a monoglyceride or a fatty acid. Notably, NOG also acts as a substrate for peptide synthesis under wet-dry cycles, generating different lipopeptides. Overall, our study establishes NAAs as a promising protoamphiphilic system, and highlights their significance in generating robust and functional protocell membranes on primitive Earth.
原两亲分子是在生命起源前可能存在的部分，它们在早期地球上构成了原始细胞膜。尽管原始有机汤中会含有多种能够生成原始细胞膜的两亲分子，但早期研究主要局限于基于脂肪酸的体系。在此，我们将N - 酰基氨基酸（NAAs）表征为一种原两亲分子模型体系。据我们所知，我们在本研究中报道了一条新的非生物途径，通过酯 - 酰胺交换过程，在干湿循环条件下由氨基酸和甘油单酯合成它们。我们还展示了N - 油酰甘氨酸（NOG，一种代表性的NAA）与甘油单酯或脂肪酸混合时，如何在很宽的pH范围内形成囊泡。值得注意的是，NOG在干湿循环条件下还充当肽合成的底物，生成不同的脂肽。总体而言，我们的研究确立了NAAs作为一种有前景的原两亲分子体系，并突出了它们在原始地球上生成坚固且具有功能的原始细胞膜方面的重要性。
