Living cells How did the first place on Earth begin? The story of the origin of life has remained mysterious and puzzled scientists for hundreds of years. Now, new research has provided some clues that could lead to a bigger answer.
living cells – “At some point, we all wonder where we came from?” Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy from the Scripps Research Institute in California, USA, said: “This discovery helps us better understand the environment of the early Earth. So we can discover the origins of life and how life could have evolved on Early Earth.
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About 4 billion years ago when the new world was forming, it was filled with many atoms and chemical molecules. These people are not alive. It's just a bunch of atoms stuck together. But over time the environment on Earth turned out to be something new: a cell.
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Scientists don't have an answer for how it goes from a chemical molecule to something with “life.” No one can answer. Despite continuous efforts, this process is still shrouded in a dark cloud. However, we see undeniable evidence that the Earth actually created life, and we are the ones reading this article.
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“Why do we live? Why do the laws of chemistry make life look the way it does here?” “It’s the most fascinating question we can answer,” said Matthew Bowner, a professor at University College London who was not involved in the research.
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Although organisms from the past and present have very different appearances, including long necks, weights of nearly 100 tons, fins, tails, and hair, they are all made of… We have a code in our DNA like sharks in the ocean. Just as a snail moves slowly through a pile of leaves, life on Earth contains A, T, C, and G, the same acidic bases found in DNA. They differ only in sorting and quantity.
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This DNA is not living. “It's just a bunch of molecules stuck together that are moving around in the cell.” So many scientists are thinking outside the box by turning to so-called “protocells,” which are the protocells for other body cells during the emergence of life. It keeps DNA safe under the protection of the barrier of lipid molecules (cell walls).
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Understanding how protocells were formed may help us more easily understand how the first life arose.
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In this new research, the team examined a process called “phosphorylation,” a molecule to which a phosphorus atom is added. This causes spherical lipid clusters or progenitor cells to develop into complex cells. Versatile, stable and more chemically active
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The research team hypothesized that, given that this process is ubiquitous in the biological functioning of the body today, it is likely that “phosphorylation” itself has been around since the first cells formed about 4 billion years ago. So they created the environment before the first life existed. (According to currently available knowledge)
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The team incorporated chemicals such as fatty acids and glycerol into those environments. By slightly adjusting the temperature and acidity, they then observe the chemical reactions of these mixtures and add new materials and reactions, such as imitating lightning.
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It was shown that fatty acid and glycerol vesicles are formed and transformed into cells via phosphorylation in this experiment. So it gives an idea that in the first period, there might have been a chemical environment similar to the one in the experiment. This means that this process may be necessary for the molecule to transform itself into a cell. This happens almost as soon as the environment allows it.
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“We have discovered a potential pathway for how phospholipids (cell walls containing phosphorus) form during chemical evolution,” said Ashok Deniz, a professor in the Department of Integrative Structural Biology at Scripps Research Institute.
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“It is exciting to uncover how early chemistry changed to allow life on Earth. Our findings also point to several interesting physics that may have played an important role right down to modern cells.”[الحالية]“.
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Scientists now know that phosphorylation is one of the factors that drives life. It made the cell wall structure more stable in the harsh and unpredictable early environment. It helps that cell survive and develop further. The team plans to take a deeper look into this process. Hoping to get more clues
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“We can't turn back time. We can't go back to the origin of life. We can't find an example in that time frame,” Pawner said. Our only potential to truly solve this problem is to rebuild it from scratch, fine-tune the structure of the cell, and understand what it takes to create life.
Researched and edited by Witit Borompichaichartkul
Origin
https://www.cell.com/chem/abstract/S2451-9294(24)00069-X
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1036040
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-may-finally-know-how-the-first-cells-on-earth-formed
