Nanoporous Silica-Based Protocells at Multiple Scales for Designs of Life and Nanomedicine [PDF]
Life, 2015 Various protocell models have been constructed de novo with the bottom-up approach. Here we describe a silica-based protocell composed of a nanoporous amorphous silica core encapsulated within a lipid bilayer built by self-assembly that provides for ...
Jie Sun +3 more
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Selection for replicases in protocells. [PDF]
PLoS Computational Biology, 2013 We consider a world of nucleotide sequences and protocells. The sequences have the property of spontaneous self-replication. Some sequences - so-called replicases - have enzymatic activity in the sense of enhancing the replication rate of all (or almost ...
Ginestra Bianconi +3 more
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Selection for growth drives the emergence of genetic heredity in protocells. [PDF]
PLoS BiologyMost theoretical work on the origin of heredity has focused on how genetic information can be maintained without mutational degradation in the absence of error-proofing systems.
Raquel Nunes Palmeira +3 more
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Organocatalyzed bottom-up formation of protocells [PDF]
Nature CommunicationsThe organisation of living systems into cellular structures is a characteristic that enables differentiation from the environment. A pivotal step in the development of life is compartmentalisation, achieved through the formation of vesicle-like ...
Marian Simon Rafael Ebeling +4 more
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Enzymatically reconfigurable liquid crystalline coacervate microdroplets as protocell models [PDF]
Nature CommunicationsReconfigurable cell-sized compartments can act as artificial cellular models that dynamically respond to environmental stimuli, mimicking the adaptive behaviors of living cells.
Liyan Jia, Chengcheng Zhou, Yan Qiao
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Protocells: At the Interface of Life and Non-Life
Life, 2015 The cellular form, manifesting as a membrane-bounded system (comprising various functional molecules), is essential to life. The ultimate reason for this is that, typically, one functional molecule can only adopt one “correct” structure to perform one ...
Wentao
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Template-Based Catalysis and the Emergence of Collectively Autocatalytic Systems [PDF]
EntropyMathematical and computational models, which have been successfully used in various fields of biology, are particularly relevant in studies on the origin of life, where wet experiments have not yet been able to obtain fully “living” entities from abiotic
Roberto Serra, Marco Villani
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Pyrite as a catalyst for the emergence of multiphase primitive cells [PDF]
Frontiers in MicrobiologyCoacervate-based protocells are minimal systems that mimic certain properties of natural cells and are used to investigate the emergence of life from nonliving chemical systems.
Niannian Ding +4 more
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Engineering Protocells: Prospects for Self-Assembly and Nanoscale Production-Lines
Life, 2015 The increasing ease of producing nucleic acids and proteins to specification offers potential for design and fabrication of artificial synthetic “organisms” with a myriad of possible capabilities.
Jacqueline M Gulbis
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Protocell Dynamics: Modelling Growth and Division of Lipid Vesicles Driven by an Autocatalytic Reaction [PDF]
LifeWe study a computational model of a protocell, in which an autocatalytic reaction sustains itself inside a lipid vesicle. The autocatalytic reaction drives volume growth via osmosis. Membrane area grows due to addition of lipids from the environment. The
Japraj Taneja, Paul G. Higgs
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