Cell-less cell division

Chemists induced a cell-like behavior in molecular assemblies called vesicles. They used a sacrificial chemical fuel to make the vesicles divide into smaller versions of themselves. While this process is much messier than real cell division, it serves as a model for how the earliest precursors to cells may have been able to split without complex inner machinery.

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Source article:
“Chemically Driven Division of Protocells by Membrane Budding” 
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Corresponding author: Job Boekhoven, Ph.D.

Transcript

This is not life. This is chemistry imitating life. But it could help us understand how life emerged on Earth. Scientists are pushing the boundary between biology and chemistry to ask, “how did biological cells first start to divide?”

Let’s start with a simple model for a cell: a vesicle made from fatty acids, which naturally arrange themselves into a membrane. Chemists can use a fuel molecule to start a reversible reaction that changes the polarity of the fatty acids. They sink into the membrane and make it swell. As the fuel runs out and the acids return to their original form, they begin to create buds.

You can see it happening to this vesicle, which contains green DNA. Buds form and pinch off, creating new vesicles with the same DNA inside.

Chemistry imitating life — to help us understand the boundary between the two. If there even is one...