This possibility, revealed by laboratory experiments with artificial fatty acid sacs, is in sharp contrast to a current theory of the earliest evolution of cells, which suggests that cellular evolution was driven by primordial genetic machinery that actively synthesized cell membranes or otherwise influenced cell stability or division.
The researchers, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Jack W. Szostak, published their findings in the September 3, 2004, issue of the journal Science. Szostak and first author Irene Chen, both from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, collaborated on the studies with Richard Roberts of the California Institute of Technology.
Cells are basically sacs encapsulated by bilayered membranes of fatty acids and other lipids, plus proteins. A central question in evolution is how simple versions of these cells, or vesicles, first arose and began the process of competition that drove the evolution of life.
"Most of the previous thinking about how cells grew and evolved was based on the idea of the initial evolution of structural RNAs or ribozymes -- enzymes that could synthesize membrane molecules," said Szostak. The ribozymes might have made more membrane material while the structural RNAs might have formed a cytoskeleton that influenced stability, shape, growth or division, he said.
However, Szostak and his colleagues theorized that a far simpler physical process might explain why cells would compete with one another for the materials necessary to expand their size.
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Contact: Jennifer Michalowski
michalow@hhmi.org
301-215-8576
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2-Sep-2004