ArticleCell reports. Physical science2025
Chemiosmotic ATP synthesis by minimal protocells.
Article in Cell reports. Physical science, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Intermediate stages in the origin of metabolism at a phosphorylating hydrothermal vent.Science advances · 2026Article
- Protein folds and catalytic strategies at the origin of biological CO2 fixation.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- The molecular mechanism of ATP synthase constrains the evolutionary landscape of chemiosmosis.Biophysical journal · 2025Review
- Nanometric and Hydrophobic Green Rust Minerals upon Exposure to Amino Acids and Nickel as Prerequisites for a Primitive Chemiosmosis.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The early evolution of the glycolytic pathway from autotrophic origins to glycogen and back.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Energy conservation is crucial to life's origin and evolution. The common ancestor of all cells used ATP synthase to convert proton gradients into ATP. However, pumps generating proton gradients and lipids maintaining proton gradients are not universally conserved across all lineages. A solution to this paradox is that ancestral ATP synthase could harness naturally formed geochemical ion gradients with simpler environmentally provided precursors preceding both proton pumps and biogenic membranes. This runs counter to traditional views that phospholipid bilayers are required to maintain proton gradients. Here, we show that fatty acid membranes can maintain sufficient proton gradients to synthesize ATP by ATP synthase under the steep pH and temperature gradients observed in hydrothermal vent systems. These findings shed substantial light on early membrane bioenergetics, uncovering a functional intermediate in the evolution of chemiosmotic ATP synthesis during protocellular stages postdating the ATP synthase's origin but preceding the advent of enzymatically synthesized cell membranes.
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Registered trials
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