DID SURFACES ENABLE THE ORIGINS OF LIFE? The role of interfaces in the emergence of primitive cells on the early Earth

SURIGINS aims to answer pending questions on how primitive cells developed on the early Earth. The project particularly focuses on establishing the feasible routes to the formation and behavior of primitive cells on solid surfaces such as rocks, minerals and meteorite specimens. One open question is how cellular diversity and speciation evolved among primitive cells. Given the unsophisticated structure and limited functions of protocells, the possibility of such structures to perform gradual optimization of their structure and function amongst diverse cellular entities, is not considered plausible. SURIGINS recently reported on an experimental pathway to the spontaneous generation of compositionally diverse synthetic protocells. The pathway is initiated by solid surface-adhered synthetic cells of different composition, which merge to produce a concentration gradient in membrane lipids across the fusion interface. The engulfment of small lipid compartments by larger ones is observed, mimicking predator-prey behavior where the observable characteristics of the prey are lost but the constituents are carried by the predator compartment to the next generation. The recent results from SURIGINS suggest a facile and feasible pathway to autonomous protocell diversification and emphasize the likely role of solid surfaces in the development of diversity and rudimentary speciation of natural protocells on the early Earth.

Have the capabilities of biosurfactant assemblies to undergo shape transformations been much underestimated? My team recently made a breakthrough discovery that simple lipid assemblies can on a solid surface spontaneously develop into a network of microcompartments, then autonomously grow, divide, and relocate. These findings not only open doors to the creation of life-like machines, artificial cells and soft computing devices, they also offer a fresh approach to the origins of life debate. I propose a research line which can answer some of the pending big questions about the origins of life. The first primitive cells are commonly viewed as spherical shells, freely suspended in aqueous medium that somehow self-assembled from fat molecules. This well explains initial, but not later steps, e.g. how containers divide autonomously. I intend to study how the tiny energy gain arising from contact with naturally occurring mineral and meteorite surfaces drive a unique multi-stage transformation of rough surfactant assemblies into organized nanotube-connected protocells. The project addresses: (i) which lipid species spontaneously form primitive cells on minerals and meteorites, (ii) how surfaces promote colony formation and encapsulation of prebiotic chemicals, (iii) If/how protocells communicate through nano-tubular interconnections. The project outcome has ground-breaking transformative potential. It can fundamentally change the way we think about the origins of life on our planet and on other parts of the solar system, e.g. Mars, and impact the way we perceive and model living systems today. Why me? Why now? Enabled by the latest interdisciplinary bionanotechnological and methodological developments, to which my team contributed significantly, the proposed hypothesis is ready to be tested. The subject of the development of life on Earth is of exceptionally broad interest, which puts SURIGINS at the forefront of research on a competitive international scale.