Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Nat Rev Chem. 2023 Oct;7(10):673-691. doi: 10.1038/s41570-023-00524-8. Epub 2023 Aug 23.
Studying autocatalysis - in which molecules catalyse their own formation - might help to explain the emergence of chemical systems that exhibit traits normally associated with biology. When coupled to other processes, autocatalysis can lead to complex systems-level behaviour in apparently simple mixtures. Lipids are an important class of chemicals that appear simple in isolation, but collectively show complex supramolecular and mesoscale dynamics. Here we discuss autocatalytic lipids as a source of extraordinary behaviour such as primitive chemical evolution, chemotaxis, temporally controllable materials and even as supramolecular catalysts for continuous synthesis. We survey the literature since the first examples of lipid autocatalysis and highlight state-of-the-art synthetic systems that emulate life, displaying behaviour such as metabolism and homeostasis, with special consideration for generating structural complexity and out-of-equilibrium models of life. Autocatalytic lipid systems have enormous potential for building complexity from simple components, and connections between physical effects and molecular reactivity are only just beginning to be discovered.
研究自催化——其中分子催化自身的形成——可能有助于解释表现出通常与生物学相关特征的化学系统的出现。当与其他过程结合时，自催化可以导致在明显简单的混合物中出现复杂的系统级行为。脂质是一类重要的化学物质，它们在孤立时看起来很简单，但集体表现出复杂的超分子和介观动力学。在这里，我们讨论作为原始化学进化、趋化性、时间可控材料甚至作为连续合成的超分子催化剂等非凡行为的来源的自催化脂质。我们调查了自催化脂质的第一个例子以来的文献，并强调了模仿生命的最先进的合成系统，展示了代谢和动态平衡等行为，特别考虑了生成结构复杂性和生命的非平衡模型。自催化脂质系统具有从简单成分构建复杂性的巨大潜力，并且物理效应和分子反应性之间的联系才刚刚开始被发现。
