From pre‐cells to Eukarya – a tale of two lipids

A mechanistic hypothesis for the origin of the three domains of life is proposed. A population of evolving pre‐cells is suggested to have had a membrane of a racemate of chiral lipids that continuously underwent spontaneous symmetry breaking by spatial phase segregation into two enantiomerically enriched membrane domains. By frequent pre‐cell fusions and fissions these membrane domains became partitioned between two pre‐cell subpopulations having predominantly one lipid enantiomer or the other. The origin of the Bacteria and Archaea is explained by divergence of first a population of proto‐bacteria and later a population of proto‐archaea from the evolving pre‐cells, each by the emergence of an enantio‐selective lipid biosynthesis within the corresponding pre‐cell subtype. The origin of the Eukarya is explained by symbiosis between a population of Bacteria and a subpopulation of pre‐cells with a predominance of the bacteria‐type lipid enantiomers.

[1]  H. Hartman,et al.  The origin of the eukaryotic cell. , 1984, Speculations in science and technology.

[2]  C. Woese,et al.  Bacterial evolution , 1987, Microbiological reviews.

[3]  T. Cavalier-smith.  The Origin of Eukaryote and Archaebacterial Cells , 1987, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[4]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  Before enzymes and templates: theory of surface metabolism. , 1988, Microbiological reviews.

[5]  S. Osawa,et al.  Evolutionary relationship of archaebacteria, eubacteria, and eukaryotes inferred from phylogenetic trees of duplicated genes. , 1989, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[6]  S. Safran,et al.  Theory of Spontaneous Vesicle Formation in Surfactant Mixtures , 1990, Science.

[7]  O. Kandler,et al.  Towards a natural system of organisms: proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. , 1990, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[8]  A. Driessen,et al.  Reconstitution of the leucine transport system of Lactococcus lactis into liposomes composed of membrane-spanning lipids from Sulfolobus acidocaldarius. , 1992, Biochemistry.

[9]  Mitchell L Sogin.  Early evolution and the origin of eukaryotes , 1992, Current Biology.

[10]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  Groundworks for an evolutionary biochemistry: the iron-sulphur world. , 1992, Progress in biophysics and molecular biology.

[11]  A. Driessen,et al.  Functional reconstitution of membrane proteins in monolayer liposomes from bipolar lipids of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius. , 1992, The Journal of biological chemistry.

[12]  M. Kates,et al.  Membrane Lipids of Archaea , 1993 .

[13]  M. Kate.  Chapter 9 Membrane lipids of archaea , 1993 .

[14]  Goldmann,et al.  Spontaneous chiral segregation in bidimensional films. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[15]  O. Kandler.  Cell wall biochemistry in Archaea and its phylogenetic implications , 1995 .

[16]  P. Forterre.  A Hot Topic: The Origin of Hyperthermophiles , 1996, Cell.

[17]  G. B. Golding,et al.  The origin of the eukaryotic cell. , 1996, Trends in biochemical sciences.

[18]  D. Vollhardt,et al.  Chiral Discrimination and Pattern Formation in N-Dodecylmannonamide Monolayers at the Air−Water Interface , 1996 .

[19]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  Activated acetic acid by carbon fixation on (Fe,Ni)S under primordial conditions. , 1997, Science.

[20]  W. Martin,et al.  The hydrogen hypothesis for the first eukaryote , 1998, Nature.

[21]  C. Woese.  The universal ancestor. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[22]  Y. Koga,et al.  Did Archaeal and Bacterial Cells Arise Independently from Noncellular Precursors? A Hypothesis Stating That the Advent of Membrane Phospholipid with Enantiomeric Glycerophosphate Backbones Caused the Separation of the Two Lines of Descent , 1998, Journal of Molecular Evolution.

[23]  Y. Koga,et al.  Did Archaeal and Bacterial Cells Arise Independently from Noncellular Precursors? A Hypothesis Stating That the Advent of Membrane Phospholipid with Enantiomeric Glycerophosphate Backbones Caused the Separation of the Two Lines of Descent , 1998, Journal of Molecular Evolution.

[24]  G. Wächtershäuser,et al.  Towards a Reconstruction of Ancestral Genomes by Gene Cluster Alignment , 1998 .

[25]  P. Dutta,et al.  Structure and phase transitions in Langmuir monolayers , 1999 .

[26]  W. Martin.  A briefly argued case that mitochondria and plastids are descendants of endosymbionts, but that the nuclear compartment is not , 1999, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[27]  Detlef D. Leipe,et al.  Did DNA replication evolve twice independently? , 1999, Nucleic acids research.

[28]  H. Morii,et al.  CTP:2,3-di-O-geranylgeranyl-sn-glycero-1-phosphate Cytidyltransferase in the Methanogenic ArchaeonMethanothermobacter thermoautotrophicus * , 2000, The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

[29]  M. Pretti,et al.  Heterochirality in Langmuir monolayers and antiferromagnetic Blume-Emery-Griffiths model , 2000 .

[30]  S. Regen,et al.  Influence of Headgroup Chirality on the Mixing Behavior of Phosphatidylglycerol Mimics in Fluid Bilayers , 2000 .

[31]  S. Kanaya,et al.  Origin of eukaryotic cell nuclei by symbiosis of Archaea in Bacteria is revealed by homology-hit analysis , 2001, Nature Cell Biology.

[32]  D. Jackson,et al.  Coupled Transcription and Translation Within Nuclei of Mammalian Cells , 2001, Science.

[33]  P. Forterre,et al.  Genomics and early cellular evolution. The origin of the DNA world. , 2001, Comptes rendus de l'Academie des sciences. Serie III, Sciences de la vie.

[34]  A. Driessen,et al.  Translocation of proteins across the cell envelope of Gram-positive bacteria. , 2001, FEMS microbiology reviews.

[35]  S. Brogna.  Pre-mRNA processing: Insights from nonsense , 2001, Current Biology.

[36]  T. Cavalier-smith,et al.  The neomuran origin of archaebacteria, the negibacterial root of the universal tree and bacterial megaclassification. , 2002, International journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology.

[37]  C. Woese.  On the evolution of cells , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[38]  Hyman Hartman,et al.  The origin of the eukaryotic cell: A genomic investigation , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[39]  W. Eisenreich,et al.  Studies on the nonmevalonate terpene biosynthetic pathway: Metabolic role of IspH (LytB) protein , 2002, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.