ArticleAstrobiology2014
Self-assembly of phosphate amphiphiles in mixtures of prebiotically plausible surfactants.
Article in Astrobiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Environmental Stability of Alkyl Phosphate- and Sulfate-Containing Membranes as Early Cell Models.ACS earth & space chemistry · 2026Article
- Chemical Routes to Primitive Membranes: Prebiotic Lipid Formation at the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Hybrid organic-inorganic structures trigger the formation of primitive cell-like compartments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Synthesis and Characterization of Amino Acid Decyl Esters as Early Membranes for the Origins of Life.Membranes · 2022Article
- Prebiological Membranes and Their Role in the Emergence of Early Cellular Life.The Journal of membrane biology · 2020Review
- Semipermeable Mixed Phospholipid-Fatty Acid Membranes Exhibit KLife (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Investigating Prebiotic Protocells for A Comprehensive Understanding of the Origins of Life: A Prebiotic Systems Chemistry Perspective.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Review
- How Prebiotic Chemistry and Early Life Chose Phosphate.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Review
- The Impact of Salts on Single Chain Amphiphile Membranes and Implications for the Location of the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2017Review
- Mineral Surface Chemistry and Nanoparticle-aggregation Control Membrane Self-Assembly.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Chemical systems, chemical contiguity and the emergence of life.Beilstein journal of organic chemistry · 2017Review
- Generating minimal living systems from non-living materials and increasing their evolutionary abilities.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- Prebiotic Lipidic Amphiphiles and Condensing Agents on the Early Earth.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2016Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The spontaneous formation of closed bilayer structures from prebiotically plausible amphiphiles is an essential requirement for the emergence of early cells on prebiotic Earth. The sources of amphiphiles could have been both endo- and exogenous (accretion of meteorite carbonaceous material or interstellar dust particles). Among all prebiotic possible amphiphile candidates, those containing phosphate are the least investigated species because their self-assembly occurs in a seemingly too narrow range of conditions. The self-assembly of simple phosphate amphiphiles should, however, be of great interest, as contemporary membranes predominantly contain phospholipids. In contrast to common expectations, we show that these amphiphiles can be easily synthesized under prebiotically plausible environmental conditions and can efficiently form bilayer structures in the presence of various co-surfactants across a large range of pH values. Vesiculation was even observed in crude reaction mixtures that contained 1-decanol as the amphiphile precursor. The two best co-surfactants promoted vesicle formation over the entire pH range in aqueous solutions. Expanding the pH range where bilayer membranes self-assemble and remain intact is a prerequisite for the emergence of early cell-like compartments and their preservation under fluctuating environmental conditions. These mixed bilayers also retained small charged solutes, such as dyes. These results demonstrate that alkyl phosphate amphiphiles might have played a significant role as early compartment building blocks.
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Registered trials
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