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The first signs of life emerged on Earth in the form of microbes about four billion years ago. While scientists are still determining exactly when and how these microbes appeared, it’s clear that the emergence of life is intricately intertwined with the chemical and physical characteristics of early Earth.
“It is reasonable to suspect that life could have started differently—or not at all—if the early chemical characteristics of our planet were different,” says Dustin Trail, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester.
But what was Earth like billions of years ago, and what characteristics may have helped life to form? In a paper published in Science, Trail and Thomas McCollom, a research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder, reveal key information in the quest to find out. The research has important implications not only for discovering the origins of life but also in the search for life on other planets.
“We are now at an exciting time in which humankind is searching for life on other planets and moons, as well as in other planetary systems,” Trail says. “But we still do not know how—or even when, really—life started on our own planet. Research like ours helps identify specific conditions and chemical pathways that could have supported the emergence of life, work which is certain to factor prominently into the search for life outside of our planet.”
The importance of metals in the emergence of life
Research into life and its origins typically involves a variety of disciplines including genomics, the study of genes and their functions; proteomics, the study of proteins; and an emerging field called metallomics, which explores the important role of metals in performing…
2023-02-10 17:28:22 New models shed light on life’s origin
Source from phys.org
For millions of years, scientists and philosophers have debated how life on Earth first began. Despite the lack of a definitive answer, many theories have come to light in attempts to explain the mysteries of our planet’s oldest known inhabitants. Recent advancements in the field of evolutionary biology have made a significant landmark in considering the origins of life and it has been speculated that modern-day models may provide a new window into the possible pathways life took in the distant past.
This summer, researchers at the University of Washington worked together to develop a new mathematical model exploring the nuclear succession across the biological tree of life. Working with data compiled from the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the scientists built a model based on a process called vertical heredity, which is the periodic importation of DNA from microbial organisms into higher eukaryotic organisms. This process describes the path through which novel genetic information is acquired from ancestral microbial-friendly environments.
The research team looked towards fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to observe how the cell nucleus utilizes vertical heredity. FISH works by illuminating the parts of a cell with fluorescence markers to locate how and where a particular element is located within that cell. By visualizing where specific DNA sequences populate within a nuclear genome, the team can make inferences about the distribution of genetic material and its putative effects on various cell components.
The researchers used the FISH technique to release a serviceable set of estimates needed to build the model. From here, they used the same model to predict the process of vertical heredity and its likelihood of success or failure. Their model succeeded in predicting the distribution of genes, DNA, and RNA across the nuclear genome in ways that had not previously been observed. This new development could be key to providing a comprehensive understanding of how cells acquire novel genetic information from their ancestral microbes, and how this process may have played a crucial role in the origination of life on Earth.
In conclusion, the results of the research team at the University of Washington provide a window into the complexities of life’s origin. By understanding the mechanism through which genetic material is transmitted and inherited, researchers are closer than ever to discovering the secrets of life’s daily operations. This could provide the tools needed to answer long-standing questions about the beginnings of life on Earth.
