ArticleNature chemistry2011
Peptide-nucleotide microdroplets as a step towards a membrane-free protocell model.
Article in Nature chemistry, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 198 papers.
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Who cites it
198 citing papers in PubMed, 663 citations in OpenAlex.
- Protein-Independent Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation of Adenosine Triphosphate Under Crowded Conditions.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Polypeptide Sequence Effects on Virus Thermostability in Complex Coacervate Formulations.Biomacromolecules · 2026Article
- Dynamic and Catalytic Multiphase Coacervates.Biomacromolecules · 2026Article
- Programmable Multiphasic Condensates Formed via Evaporation-Induced Phase Separation of Minimal Peptide Model.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- GSH-Responsive Co-Delivery of Chrysin and 3‑Methyladenine Disrupts Tumor Adaptive Stress for Synergistic Antitumor Therapy.ACS omega · 2026Article
- Diastereomeric Configuration Modulates Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation and Catalysis in Minimalist Dipeptide Coacervates.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- RNA and proteins joined up at the Origins of Life: Persistence is the point.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Prebiotic β-Strand Peptides May Be a Plausible Solution to the Protocell Permeability Problem.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Review
- Bottom-Up Coacervate-Based Artificial Cells: Integrating Cellular Hallmarks into Complex Life-Like Systems.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Review
- Increasing the Compositional Heterogeneity of Single-Chain Amphiphile Membranes Supported by Coacervate Cores Alters Stability and Properties of the Hybrid Protocells.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2026Article
- Ambient one-step synthesis and direct coating of highly crystalline covalent organic frameworks on arbitrary surfaces.Science advances · 2026Article
- Coacervate-Mediated Lysosome-Targeting Antibody Delivery for Protein Degradation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Proteinoid Computing on Olivine Substrates.Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids · 2026Article
- Metal-dependent and metal-free mechanisms of peptide condensate catalysts.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Effect of Polymer Structure on the Thermodynamics of Polyelectrolyte Complex Micelle Formation.Macromolecules · 2026Article
- Surface Engineered Biomolecular Condensates for Targeted Cell Cytotoxicity.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Protometabolically Generated NADH Mediates Material Properties of Aqueous Dispersions to Coacervate Microdroplets.Biomacromolecules · 2026Article
- Biomolecular Condensates in and Around the ER-Golgi Interface.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2026Review
- Entropy-Driven Amino Acid-Based Coacervates with Enzyme-Free Metabolism and Prebiotic Robustness.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- Enzymatically reconfigurable liquid crystalline coacervate microdroplets as protocell models.Nature communications · 2025Article
138 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although phospholipid bilayers are ubiquitous in modern cells, their impermeability, lack of dynamic properties, and synthetic complexity are difficult to reconcile with plausible pathways of proto-metabolism, growth and division. Here, we present an alternative membrane-free model, which demonstrates that low-molecular-weight mononucleotides and simple cationic peptides spontaneously accumulate in water into microdroplets that are stable to changes in temperature and salt concentration, undergo pH-induced cycles of growth and decay, and promote α-helical peptide secondary structure. Moreover, the microdroplets selectively sequester porphyrins, inorganic nanoparticles and enzymes to generate supramolecular stacked arrays of light-harvesting molecules, nanoparticle-mediated oxidase activity, and enhanced rates of glucose phosphorylation, respectively. Taken together, our results suggest that peptide-nucleotide microdroplets can be considered as a new type of protocell model that could be used to develop novel bioreactors, primitive artificial cells and plausible pathways to prebiotic organization before the emergence of lipid-based compartmentalization on the early Earth.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.