Origin of life. II. From prebiotic replicators to protocells.

Abstract

Primitive microvesicles (coacervates, microspheres, marigranules, etc.), free-born in aqueous media, are only protometabolic proteinoids surrounded by an amphiphilic protomembrane. In contrast, surface-born microvesicles could be initiated in the pores of watered rocks providing primary boundaries coated by amphiphilic compounds and acting as sinks for primitive peptides and their coding nucleobases N-P anchored on polyphosphates. Only presumed replication of these prenucleic infopolymers would qualify the basipetally budded microvesicles as protocells.