Abstract
It is a long-standing and still open problem to determine the origin of biomolecular homochirality, and many scenarios have been suggested. Amphiphilic molecules are renowned for their capability to reorganize themselves in a variety of different morphologies and topologies, and for their capability to partition chemicals in well defined domains. Here a possible role for amphiphilic molecules inducing symmetry breaking is suggested in the framework of the research on origin of life.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Avetisov, V. and Goldanskii, V.: 1996, Mirror Symmetry Breaking at the Molecular Level, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93(21), 11435–11442.
Avetisov, V. and Goldanskii, V. I.: 1991, Homochirality and Stereospecific Activity: Evolutionary Aspects, Biosystems 25(3), 141–149.
Deamer, D. W. and Barchfeld, G. L.: 1982, Encapsulation of Macromolecules by Lipid Vesicles under Simulated Prebiotic Conditions, J. Mol. Evol. 18, 203–206.
Fontell, K.: 1990, Cubic Phases in Surfactant and Surfactant-Like Lipid Systems, Coll. Polym. Scien. 268(3), 264–285.
Goldrach, R. J.: 1958, Surface Films: Their Collapse on Compression, the Shape and Size of Cells, and the Origin of Life, Surface Phenomena in Biology and Chemistry, Pergamon Press, New York. bibitem[] Hahn, T. E.: 1989, International Table for Crystallography (2nd Edition, Vol. A Space Group Symmetry).
Hamley, I. W.: 2000, Introduction to Soft Matter: Polymers, Colloids, Amphiphiles and Liquid Crystals, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hyde, S., Andersson, S., Larsson, K., Blum, Z., Landh, T., Lidin, S. and Ninham, B. W.: 1997, The language of Shape, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.
Imai, M., Kawaguchi, A., Saeki, A., Nakaya, K., Kato, T., Ito, K. and Amemiya, Y.: 2000, Fluctuations of Lamellar Structure Prior to a Lamellar->Gyroid Transition in a Nonionic Surfactant System, Phys. Rev. E Stat. Phys. Plasmas Fluids Relat. Interdiscip. Topics 62(5), 6865–6874.
Luzzati, V.: 1997, Biological Significance of Lipid Polymorphism: The Cubic Phases, Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 7(5), 661–668.
Luzzati, V., Tardieu, A., Gulik-Krzywicki, T., Rivas, E. and Reiss-Husson, F.: 1968, Structure of the Cubic Phases of Lipid-Water Systems, Nature 220(166), 485–488.
Luzzati, V., Vargas, R., Gulik, A., Mariani, P., Seddon, J. M. and Rivas, E.: 1992, Lipid Polymorphism: A Correction. The Structure of the Cubic Phase of Extinction Symbol Fd — Consists of Two Types of Disjointed Reverse Micelles Embedded in a Three-Dimensional Hydrocarbon Matrix, Biochemistry 31(1), 279–285.
Luzzati, V., Vargas, R., Mariani, P., Gulik, A. and Delacroix, H.: 1993, Cubic Phases of Lipid-Containing Systems. Elements of a Theory and Biological Connotations, J. Mol. Biol. 229(2), 540–551.
Ourisson, G. and Nakatani, Y.: 1999, Addendum, Tetrahedron 55(11), 3183–3190.
Pickett, G. T., Gross, M. and Okuyama, H.: 2000, Spontaneous Chirality in Simple Systems, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85(17), 3652–3655.
Piotto, S. P.: 2000, A Novel Surface Approach to Treat and Analyse Membranes, Micelles, Vesicles and their Transitions, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zuerich.
Seddon, J. M.: 2001, Surfactant Liquid Crystals, Current Opinion in Colloid & Interface Science 6(3), 242–243.
Seddon, J. M.: 2002, Kinetics and Mechanism of the Lamellar to Gyroid Inverse Bicontinuous Cubic Phase Transition, Langmuir 18, 7384–7392.
Seddon, J. M., Zeb, N., McElhaney, R. N. and Mannock, D. A.: 1996, An Fd3m Lyotropic Cibic Phase in a Binary Glycolipid/Water System, Langmuir 12, 5250–5253.
Singer, S. J. and Nicolson, G. L.: 1972, The Fluid Mosaic Model of the Structure of Cell Membranes, Science 175, 720–731.
Strey, R., Jahn, W., Skouri, M., Porte, G., Marignan, J. and Olsson, U.: 1992, Fluid Membranes in the Water/NaCl-AOT System: A Study Combining Small-Angle Neutron Scattering, Electron Microscopy and NMR Self Diffusion, in S.-H. Chen, J. S. Huang and P. Tartaglia (eds.), Structure and Dynamics of Strongly Interacting Colloids and Supramolecular Aggregates in Solution, pp. 351–363.
Szostak, J. W., Bartel, D. P. and Luisi, P. L.: 2001, Synthesizing Life, Nature 409Suppl, 387–390.
Tschierske, C.: 2002, Liquid Crystalline Materials with Complex Mesophase Morphologies, Current Opinion in Colloid & Interface Science 7(1–2), 69–80.
Weissbuch, I., Bolbach, G., Zepik, H., Shavit, E., Tang, M., Frey, J., Jensen, T. R., Kjaer, K., Leiserowitz, L. and Lahav, M.: 2002, Oligopeptides with Homochiral Sequences Generated from Racemic Precursors that Spontaneously Separate into Enantiomorphous Two-Dimensional Crystalline Domains on Water Surface, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124(31), 9093–9104.
Zepik, H., Shavit, E., Tang, M., Jensen, T. R., Kjaer, K., Bolbach, G., Leiserowitz, L., Weissbuch, I. and Lahav, M.: 2000, Chiral Amplification of Oligopeptides in Two-Dimensional Crystalline Self-Assemblies on Water, Science 295, 1266–1269.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Piotto, S. Lipid Aggregates Inducing Symmetry Breaking in Prebiotic Polymerisations. Orig Life Evol Biosph 34, 123–132 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ORIG.0000009833.09940.b6
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ORIG.0000009833.09940.b6