Biochemists create protocells to explore how lipids may have led to first cell membranes
A team of biochemists at the University of California, San Diego, working with a group of biochemical engineers from the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that the development of short lipids might have led to the development of the first cell membranes on early Earth. In their study published in the journal Nature Chemistry , the group combined cysteine with chemical relatives of fatty acids to form lipids with two tails, finding clues about the origins of life on Earth. The research team reasoned that for cells to get their start on early Earth, some form of cell boundary must have formed first to protect cell contents from the environment. Noting that modern cell membranes are all made of lipids, the researchers wondered if the first cell membranes might have been made of lipids as well—and if that was the case, how they might have developed from simple molecules. They also noted that modern cell membranes are complex and generally long chained. Suspecting that earl...