Evidence of Heritability in Prebiotically Realistic Membrane-Bound Systems

Area of Science:

• Origin of life studies
• Biophysics
• Prebiotic chemistry

Background:

• Vesicles formed from short chain amphiphiles can grow and divide.
• Understanding heritability in early protocell models is crucial for origin of life research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate heritability in populations of decanoic acid:decylamine vesicles.
• To determine if vesicle populations exhibit traits passed across generations under simulated early Earth conditions.

Main Methods:

• Prepared vesicles in water or prebiotic soup, with or without detergent.
• Subjected vesicle populations to 30 generations of transfer with dilution.
• Compared vesicle size, chemical composition, and Nile Red fluorescence between transfer samples and no-transfer controls.

Main Results:

• Vesicle size distributions changed over generations.
• No significant differences in chemical composition were detected.
• Samples with detergent and prebiotic soup showed correlated Nile Red fluorescence between parent and offspring, suggesting heritability.

Conclusions:

• Vesicle populations may possess heritable traits, indicated by correlated fluorescence.
• Temporal autocorrelation across generations suggests vesicles could be subject to selection pressures.
• These findings offer insights into the potential for early protocell evolution.