Darwinian evolution has shaped life on our planet through natural selection. Here, the authors report on the combination of self-replication, mutation and protometabolism in an out-of-equilibrium abio...

Oscillatory chemical reactions are functional components in a variety of biological contexts. In chemistry, the construction and identification of even rudimentary oscillators remain elusive and lack ...

The University of Ottawa invites applications for a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Sustainable Catalyst Design. The successful candidate wil...

Biomolecular condensates are liquid droplets formed by liquid–liquid phase separation and play a role in a variety of cellular processes. In the past decade, there has been a growing interest in their...

Le GT Chimie des Origines est un Groupe Thématique de la Société Chimique de France

Applications are now open. The Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and the University of Cambridge are committed to widening participation in postgraduate students at the University of Cambridg...

Nature Chemistry - It is unclear whether Darwinian principles extend to chemistry and if they can direct chemistry to produce specific products. Now it has been shown that competition between...

All chemists are familiar with the idea that, at equilibrium steady state, the relative concentrations of species present in a system are predicted by the corresponding equilibrium constants, which are related to the free energy differences between the system components. There is also no net flux between species, no matter how complicated the reaction network. Achieving and harnessing non-equilibrium steady states, by coupling a reaction network to a second spontaneous chemical process, has been the subject of work in several disciplines, including the operation of molecular motors, the assembly of supramolecular materials, and strategies in enantioselective catalysis. We juxtapose these linked fields to highlight their common features and challenges as well as some common misconceptions that may be serving to stymie progress.

It is unclear whether Darwinian principles extend to chemistry and if they can direct chemistry to produce specific products. Now it has been shown that competition between self-replicating molecules ...

Self-replicating molecules and well-defined folded macromolecules are of great significance in the emergence and evolution of life. How they may interconnect and affect each other remains largely elusive. Here, we demonstrate an abiotic system where a single building block can oligomerize to yield either a self-replicating molecule or a foldamer. Specifically, agitation of a disulfide-based dynamic combinatorial library at moderately elevated pH channels it selectively into a self-replicating hexamer assembled into fibers, after passing through a period where a 15-subunit macrocyclic foldamer existed transiently. Without mechanoagitation or at lower pH, the formation of hexamer fiber is suppressed, resulting in the accumulation of the 15mer foldamer. Foldamer and self-replicator can be interconverted in response to external stimuli, including agitation and a change in pH. Furthermore, upon the addition of a photoacid, the pH of the medium can be controlled by irradiation, driving the switching between replicator and foldamer and allowing a dissipative out-of-equilibrium state to be accessed, using light as a source of energy.

Systems chemistry has emerged as a useful paradigm to access structures and phenomena typically exhibited by living systems, including complex molecular systems such as self-replicators and foldamers....