ReviewMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR2009
The role of biomacromolecular crowding, ionic strength, and physicochemical gradients in the complexities of life's emergence.
Review in Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
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64 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ribosomal L12 stalks recruit elongation factors to speed protein synthesis in Escherichia coli.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Crowding-induced stabilization and destabilization in a single protein.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025Article
- Physicochemical Perspective of Biological Heterogeneity.ACS physical chemistry Au · 2024Review
- The reproduction process of Gram-positive protocells.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Macromolecular Crowding, Phase Separation, and Homeostasis in the Orchestration of Bacterial Cellular Functions.Chemical reviews · 2024Review
- Using NMR-detected hydrogen-deuterium exchange to quantify protein stability in cosolutes, under crowded conditionsMagnetic resonance letters · 2023Review
- The protometabolic nature of prebiotic chemistry.Chemical Society reviews · 2023Review
- Article
- Precise tuning of bacterial translation initiation by non-equilibrium 5'-UTR unfolding observed in single mRNAs.Nucleic acids research · 2022Article
- Protein diffusion inScience advances · 2022Article
- The Effect of Lithium on the Budding YeastMicroorganisms · 2022Article
- Dielectricity of a molecularly crowded solution accelerates NTP misincorporation during RNA-dependent RNA polymerization by T7 RNA polymerase.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Intrinsically disordered protein biosensor tracks the physical-chemical effects of osmotic stress on cells.Nature communications · 2021Article
- The Origin(s) of Cell(s): Pre-Darwinian Evolution from FUCAs to LUCA : To Carl Woese (1928-2012), for his Conceptual Breakthrough of Cellular Evolution.Journal of molecular evolution · 2021Article
- Assembly of bacterial cell division protein FtsZ into dynamic biomolecular condensates.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Molecular cell research · 2021Article
- Common architectures in cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus cells visualized by X-ray diffraction imaging using X-ray free electron laser.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Molecules, Information and the Origin of Life: What Is Next?Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- A Programmable DNA-Silicification-Based Nanocavity for Single-Molecule Plasmonic Sensing.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2021Article
- Mechanisms of Plant Responses and Adaptation to Soil Salinity.Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.)) · 2020Review
- Intrinsic concentration cycles and high ion fluxes in self-assembled precipitate membranes.Interface focus · 2019Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
We have developed a general scenario of prebiotic physicochemical evolution during the Earth's Hadean eon and reviewed the relevant literature. We suggest that prebiotic chemical evolution started in microspaces with membranous walls, where external temperature and osmotic gradients were coupled to free-energy gradients of potential chemical reactions. The key feature of this scenario is the onset of an emergent evolutionary transition within the microspaces that is described by the model of complex vectorial chemistry. This transition occurs at average macromolecular crowding of 20 to 30% of the cell volume, when the ranges of action of stabilizing colloidal forces (screened electrostatic forces, hydration, and excluded volume forces) become commensurate. Under these conditions, the macromolecules divide the interior of microspaces into dynamically crowded macromolecular regions and topologically complementary electrolyte pools. Small ions and ionic metabolites are transported vectorially between the electrolyte pools and through the (semiconducting) electrolyte pathways of the crowded macromolecular regions from their high electrochemical potential (where they are biochemically produced) to their lower electrochemical potential (where they are consumed). We suggest a sequence of tentative transitions between major evolutionary periods during the Hadean eon as follows: (i) the early water world, (ii) the appearance of land masses, (iii) the pre-RNA world, (iv) the onset of complex vectorial chemistry, and (v) the RNA world and evolution toward Darwinian thresholds. We stress the importance of high ionic strength of the Hadean ocean (short Debye's lengths) and screened electrostatic interactions that enabled the onset of the vectorial structure of the cytoplasm and the possibility of life's emergence.
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