Abstract:
The osmotic rupture of a cell, its osmotic lysis or cytolysis, is a phenomenon that active biological cell volume regulation mechanisms have evolved in the cell membrane to avoid. How then, at the origin of life, did the first protocells survive prior to such active processes? The pores of alkaline hydrothermal vents in the oceans form natural nanoreactors in which osmosis across a mineral membrane plays a fundamental role. Here, we discuss the dynamics of lysis and its avoidance in an abiotic system without any active mechanisms, reliant upon self-organized behaviour, similar to the first self-organized mineral membranes within which complex chemistry may have begun to evolve into metabolism. We show that such mineral nanoreactors could function as protocells without exploding because their self-organized dynamics have a large regime in parameter space where osmotic lysis does not occur and homeostasis is possible. The beginnings of Darwinian evolution in proto-biochemistry must have involved the survival of protocells that remained within such a safe regime.
摘要:
细胞的渗透破裂,它的渗透溶解或细胞溶解,是一种现象,即活跃的生物细胞体积调节机制已经在细胞膜上进化而避免。那么如何,在生命的起源,海洋中碱性热液喷口的孔形成了天然纳米反应器,其中穿过矿物膜的渗透起着根本作用。这里,我们讨论了在没有任何主动机制的非生物系统中裂解的动力学及其避免,依赖自组织行为,类似于第一个自组织的矿物膜,其中复杂的化学可能已经开始演变成新陈代谢。我们表明,这种矿物纳米反应器可以充当原始细胞而不会爆炸,因为它们的自组织动力学在参数空间中具有很大的机制,其中不会发生渗透裂解并且可以实现稳态。在原始生物化学中达尔文进化论的开始必须涉及原始细胞的生存,这些原始细胞仍处于这种安全状态。