100th Anniversary of Macromolecular Science Viewpoint: Toward Artificial Life-Supporting Macromolecules

Terrestrial Life is based on polymers. In all known living organisms, DNA stores genetic information, mutates, self-replicates, and guides the synthesis of messenger molecules. Although the function of nucleic acids is well-understood, the development of artificial macromolecular mimics remains very limited. Laboratory-synthesized nucleic acids still support Life, and some nucleic acids analogues exhibit biological functions. Yet, after hundred years of polymer science, no other type of Life-supporting macromolecule (i.e., non-nucleic acids) has ever been reported. In this context, the aim of the present viewpoint is to discuss important challenges that shall be addressed by polymer chemists to achieve artificial Life. Similarly to DNA, an artificial Life-supporting macromolecule shall store information, transfer information, and mutate. Many tools, such as sequence-defined polymer synthesis, polymer modification, supramolecular polymer chemistry, and dynamic chemistry, are already available to chemists to attain these properties. However, the design of artificial Life-supporting macromolecules is hindered by two main factors. First, the chemical search space is enormous, and it is difficult to predict promising structures, even with the help of combinatorial and chemoinformatic tools. Second, rational design is probably a limited approach to achieve macromolecules that shall be involved in nonequilibrium metabolic systems. Hence, a synergic combination of classical polymer chemistry with the more recent field of systems chemistry is probably the key toward the emergence of artificial Life-supporting macromolecules.