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Life
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Feature Papers in Origins of Life 2024
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Feature Papers in Origins of Life 2024

A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Origin of Life".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 13 December 2024 | Viewed by 1385

Special Issue Editor

Dr. James R. Lyons

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
Interests: astrobiology; prebiotic chemistry; photochemistry; hydrothermal vents; amino acids; RNA world; phospholipids; solar nebula; photosynthesis; exoplanets

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to introduce “Feature Papers in Origins of Life”, a Life Special Issue. This Special Issue encompasses a broad range of topics related to the origins of life. We encourage submissions from both early career researchers and established researchers in the field, as our aim for this Special Issue is to publish innovative research on all aspects of the origins of life and to provide a unique perspective towards the future of the field.

All researchers are invited to contribute submissions which focus on, but are not limited to, the following foundational and emergent research topics in the origins of life and related areas:

  • Astrobiology: all topics within astrobiology, including analog environments on Earth, and the delivery of organics to Earth and other planets from space.
  • Astrochemistry: organics and prebiotic molecular precursors in molecular clouds, protoplanetary disks, and the solar nebula.
  • Planetary science: early conditions on Earth, Venus, Mars, and terrestrial exoplanets.
  • Geology, geochemistry and geobiology: early surface conditions on terrestrial-type planets.
  • Prebiotic chemistry: syntheses of monomeric and polymeric prebiotic molecules.
  • Chirality: mechanisms for the preferential selection of enantiomers of chiral molecules.
  • Chemical evolution: primitive catalysis and mechanisms for self-replication and Darwinian selection.
  • Protocells: membrane synthesis, encapsulation, and primitive ion channels.
  • Synthetic biology: non-traditional chemical systems capable of Darwinian evolution.
  • Complex systems: the chemical evolution of simple and more complex molecular precursors.

Previous Special Issue: https://susy.mdpi.com/special_issue/process/1337809

Dr. James R. Lyons
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • astrobiology
  • astrochemistry
  • planetary science
  • geobiology
  • prebiotic chemistry
  • chirality
  • chemical evolution
  • protocells
  • synthetic biology
  • complex systems

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 2209 KiB  
Article
Autocatalytic Selection as a Driver for the Origin of Life
by Mike P. Williamson
Life 2024, 14(5), 590; https://doi.org/10.3390/life14050590 - 6 May 2024
Viewed by 605
Abstract
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was revolutionary because it provided a mechanism by which variation could be selected. This mechanism can only operate on living systems and thus cannot be applied to the origin of life. Here, we propose a viable [...] Read more.
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was revolutionary because it provided a mechanism by which variation could be selected. This mechanism can only operate on living systems and thus cannot be applied to the origin of life. Here, we propose a viable alternative mechanism for prebiotic systems: autocatalytic selection, in which molecules catalyze reactions and processes that lead to increases in their concentration. Crucially, this provides a driver for increases in concentrations of molecules to a level that permits prebiotic metabolism. We show how this can produce high levels of amino acids, sugar phosphates, nucleotides and lipids and then lead on to polymers. Our outline is supported by a set of guidelines to support the identification of the most likely prebiotic routes. Most of the steps in this pathway are already supported by experimental results. These proposals generate a coherent and viable set of pathways that run from established Hadean geochemistry to the beginning of life. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Papers in Origins of Life 2024)
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Review

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18 pages, 1836 KiB  
Review
The Winding Road from Origin to Emergence (of Life)
by Wolfgang Nitschke, Orion Farr, Nil Gaudu, Chloé Truong, François Guyot, Michael J. Russell and Simon Duval
Life 2024, 14(5), 607; https://doi.org/10.3390/life14050607 - 9 May 2024
Viewed by 613
Abstract
Humanity’s strive to understand why and how life appeared on planet Earth dates back to prehistoric times. At the beginning of the 19th century, empirical biology started to tackle this question yielding both Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and the paradigm that the [...] Read more.
Humanity’s strive to understand why and how life appeared on planet Earth dates back to prehistoric times. At the beginning of the 19th century, empirical biology started to tackle this question yielding both Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and the paradigm that the crucial trigger putting life on its tracks was the appearance of organic molecules. In parallel to these developments in the biological sciences, physics and physical chemistry saw the fundamental laws of thermodynamics being unraveled. Towards the end of the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century, the tensions between thermodynamics and the “organic-molecules-paradigm” became increasingly difficult to ignore, culminating in Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 formulation of a thermodynamics-compliant vision of life and, consequently, the prerequisites for its appearance. We will first review the major milestones over the last 200 years in the biological and the physical sciences, relevant to making sense of life and its origins and then discuss the more recent reappraisal of the relative importance of metal ions vs. organic molecules in performing the essential processes of a living cell. Based on this reassessment and the modern understanding of biological free energy conversion (aka bioenergetics), we consider that scenarios wherein life emerges from an abiotic chemiosmotic process are both thermodynamics-compliant and the most parsimonious proposed so far. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Papers in Origins of Life 2024)
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