ReviewLife (Basel, Switzerland)2017
The Role of Lipid Membranes in Life's Origin.
Review in Life (Basel, Switzerland), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 84 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed.
- From Meteorites to Membrane Rafts: Ganglioside-Incorporating Prebiotic Vesicles and the Emergence of Membrane Domain Organization.The Journal of membrane biology · 2026Article
- Low-Molecular-Weight Polyols as Key Factors in Sulfur- and Borate-Mediated Protomembrane Formation Before the RNA World.Membranes · 2026Review
- Hydroxy acid conjugation to lipids increases structural and hydrolytic stability.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The challenge of distinguishing living from non-living entities.Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften · 2026Review
- Chemical Routes to Primitive Membranes: Prebiotic Lipid Formation at the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Review
- Construction of Phospholipid-Like Vesicles by Aqueous Aminolysis of Acyl Thioesters With Diamino Acids.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- The Origin of Life and Cellular Systems: A Continuum from Prebiotic Chemistry to Biodiversity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Origin of life: β-sheet amyloid conformers as the primordial functional polymers on the early Earth and their role in the emergence of complex dynamic networks.FEBS letters · 2025Review
- Permeability selection of biologically relevant membranes matches the stereochemistry of life on Earth.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Unlocking the power of membrane biophysics: enhancing the study of antimicrobial peptides activity and selectivity.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- Evolution of complex chemical mixtures reveals combinatorial compression and population synchronicity.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
- Chemiosmotic ATP synthesis by minimal protocells.Cell reports. Physical science · 2025Article
- The Origin of Life in the Early Continental Crust: A Comprehensive Model.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Serotonergic Mechanisms in Proteinoid-Based Protocells.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2025Article
- Protocells by spontaneous reaction of cysteine with short-chain thioesters.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
- Chemically Driven Division of Protocells by Membrane Budding.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2024Article
- Hybrid Protocells Based on Coacervate-Templated Fatty Acid Vesicles Combine Improved Membrane Stability with Functional Interior Protocytoplasm.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2024Article
- Rethinking life and predicting its origin.Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften · 2024Article
- Information Gradient among Nucleotide Sequences of Essential RNAs from an Evolutionary Perspective.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
24 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
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
At some point in early evolution, life became cellular. Assuming that this step was required for the origin of life, there would necessarily be a pre-existing source of amphihilic compounds capable of assembling into membranous compartments. It is possible to make informed guesses about the properties of such compounds and the conditions most conducive to their self-assembly into boundary structures. The membranes were likely to incorporate mixtures of hydrocarbon derivatives between 10 and 20 carbons in length with carboxylate or hydroxyl head groups. Such compounds can be synthesized by chemical reactions and small amounts were almost certainly present in the prebiotic environment. Membrane assembly occurs most readily in low ionic strength solutions with minimal content of salt and divalent cations, which suggests that cellular life began in fresh water pools associated with volcanic islands rather than submarine hydrothermal vents.
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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.