ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2012
The early evolution of lipid membranes and the three domains of life.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 135 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
135 citing papers in PubMed, 320 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional Specialization of Clathrin-Independent Endocytic Routes: Mechanisms and Cellular Roles.Traffic (Copenhagen, Denmark) · 2026Review
- Predicting membrane protein localization by deep learning on structure and chemistry.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Article
- Hydroxy acid conjugation to lipids increases structural and hydrolytic stability.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Emergence of Life in the Light of Evolution.ArXiv · 2026Article
- Bacterial lipid synthesizing enzymes PlsY and PlsC utilize both stereo-forms of glycerol-phosphate.EMBO reports · 2026Article
- Why Do Cells Contain Thousands of Lipid Species? Toward an Integrated Framework for Lipid Diversity in Biological Membranes.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Origin of eukaryotic plasmalogen biosynthesis by horizontal gene transfer from myxobacteria.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Chemical Routes to Primitive Membranes: Prebiotic Lipid Formation at the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Radioactive Springs and Archaeal Life in Deep Groundwater Systems.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Article
- An updated overview of lipid-regulated immunobiology in macrophages.Acta biochimica et biophysica Sinica · 2026Review
- Tat-dependent protein translocation and its evolution.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- How hard is it to encapsulate life? The general constraints on encapsulation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The role of ester- versus ether-linked phospholipids in the ability of biological membranes to accept protons and support proton diffusion.Biophysical journal · 2025Article
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Harnessing prebiotic formamide chemistry: a novel platform for antiviral exploration.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Phosphate in Physiological and Pathological Mineralization: Important yet Often Unheeded.MedComm · 2025Review
- Relationship troubles at the mitochondrial level and what it might mean for human disease.Open biology · 2025Review
- Permeability selection of biologically relevant membranes matches the stereochemistry of life on Earth.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Article
75 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
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
All cell membranes are composed of glycerol phosphate phospholipids, and this commonality argues for the presence of such phospholipids in the last common ancestor, or cenancestor. However, phospholipid biosynthesis is very different between bacteria and archaea, leading to the suggestion that the cenancestor was devoid of phospholipid membranes. Recent phylogenomic studies challenge this view, suggesting that the cenancestor did possess complex phospholipid membranes. Here, we discuss the implications of these recent findings for membrane evolution in archaea and bacteria, and for the origin of the eukaryotic cell.
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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.