On the origins of life

By demonstrating how the first biomolecules may have been created, scientists shed light on the origins of life on Earth.

Scientists have shown how the first biomolecules may have been stabilized, leading to a better understanding of how life began on Earth.

Proteins, the building blocks of life, are formed from biomolecules that are chemically unstable and require energy to prevent them from dissociating. In living organisms, cells provide this energy, but the Earth’s primordial soup did not contain cells to stabilize the first biomolecules.

Now, a team in Germany, including researchers from the Technical University of Munich, has demonstrated how phase separation, in which two immiscible liquids form in a solution, can stabilize simple biomolecules long enough to form proteins.

After reacting carboxylic acid molecules with carbodiimides to produce carboxylic acid anhydrides, the researchers discovered that some of the anhydrides formed as droplets in water, which prevented them from dissociating and allowed them to survive longer.

This article was first published by Springer Nature. Read the original article at https://www.natureindex.com/article/10.1038/s41467-018-04488-y.

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