Protocells

Key question

How did chemistry become life?

Check your understanding

Find an example, an application and a limit. Explain the concept without using its name, then compare your explanation with a primary source.

Claims to examine

• A plausible origin account must connect energy flow, compartmentalisation and heritable chemical change.

  Editorial claim · contestedExamine the source →

Follow a learning route

• How did chemistry become life?

  Compare energetic, genetic and compartment-first accounts without treating any one as settled.

Reading connections

• The Origin of Membrane Bioenergetics

  Nick Lane · William Martin

• Common Origins of RNA, Protein and Lipid Precursors in a Cyanosulfidic Protometabolism

  Bhavesh H. Patel et al.

• The Eightfold Path to Non-Enzymatic RNA Replication

  Jack W. Szostak

• The Physiology and Habitat of the Last Universal Common Ancestor

  Madelene C. Weiss et al.

• Studies on the Origin of Life — The End of the Beginning

  John D. Sutherland