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The origin of cellular lifeThis essay presents a scenario of the origin of life that is based on analysis of biological architecture and mechanical design at the microstructural level. My thesis is that the same architectural and energetic constraints that shape cells today also guided the evolution of the first cells and that the molecular scaffolds that support solid-phase biochemistry in modern cells represent living microfossils of past life forms. This concept emerged from the discovery that cells mechanically stabilize themselves using tensegrity architecture and that these same building rules guide hierarchical self-assembly at all size scales (Sci. Amer 278:48-57;1998). When combined with other fundamental design principles (e.g., energy minimization, topological constraints, structural hierarchies, autocatalytic sets, solid-state biochemistry), tensegrity provides a physical basis to explain how atomic and molecular elements progressively self-assembled to create hierarchical structures with increasingly complex functions, including living cells that can self-reproduce.
Document ID
20040112680
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Ingber, D. E.
(Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston, MA 02115, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
December 1, 2000
Publication Information
Publication: BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
Volume: 22
Issue: 12
ISSN: 0265-9247
Subject Category
Exobiology
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Review, Academic
NASA Discipline Cell Biology
Review
Non-NASA Center

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