title: Question 7: The vesicle world: the emergence of cellular life can be related to properties specific to vesicles.
abstract: The question "What was the minimum number of genes necessary in the early cell" is rephrased as "Is it feasible to assume that early cells had no genes?" It is shown that a kind of primitive life process could exist on the basis only of properties specific to vesicles, and that it would have the potential to evolve into more complex cell-like processes.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Lipiceva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. sasa.svetina@biofiz.mf.uni-lj.si
authors.forename: Sasa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Svetina
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D008081:Liposomes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D008081:Liposomes