ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2026
Phase separation induced by active polymerization makes protocells robust against environmental changes.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Phase separation induced by active polymerization makes protocells robust against environmental changes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The origin of life remains a scientific mystery, particularly the emergence of protocells. One hypothesis proposes that protocells arose as droplets formed via liquid-liquid phase separation of polymers. The work on this hypothesis leaves open how protocells survived in fluctuating or cyclic environments. We consider a model system incorporating both spontaneous polymerization and droplet-facilitated fuel-driven polymerization. We show that the resulting droplets display a stationary hysteresis with respect to available fuel. Droplets can remain stable even after the fuel-driven polymerization reactions significantly diminish, suggesting a potential mechanism for protocell formation and resilience to environmental fluctuations. This robustness would have enabled protocells to endure early environmental challenges, such as energy shortages in a famine.
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Registered trials
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