title: On the origin of genomes and cells within inorganic compartments.
abstract: Building on the model of Russell and Hall for the emergence of life at a warm submarine hydrothermal vent, we suggest that, within a hydrothermally formed system of contiguous iron-sulfide (FeS) compartments, populations of virus-like RNA molecules, which eventually encoded one or a few proteins each, became the agents of both variation and selection. The initial darwinian selection was for molecular self-replication. Combinatorial sorting of genetic elements among compartments would have resulted in preferred proliferation and selection of increasingly complex molecular ensembles--those compartment contents that achieved replication advantages. The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) we propose was not free-living but an inorganically housed assemblage of expressed and replicable genetic elements. The evolution of the enzymatic systems for (i) DNA replication; and (ii) membrane and cell wall biosynthesis, enabled independent escape of the first archaebacterial and eubacterial cells from their hydrothermal hatchery, within which the LUCA itself remained confined.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA. koonin@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
authors.forename: Eugene V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Koonin
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Martin
mesh_terms: D004247:DNA / Q000502:physiology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020745:Genome, Archaeal; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D000069497:Origin of Life; D012313:RNA / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012313:RNA; D004247:DNA