LipRise - The origins of lipid diversity

The origin of cell membranes is a critical unresolved issue in evolution. Evolutionary biology suggests that early cells had membranes made of diverse lipids involved in genetic and metabolic processes. However, the assumption that lipid diversity relies on enzymatic chemistry has led to models with simple membranes (composed of binary or ternary mixtures of short-chain fatty acids or phosphatidic acids) that passively host these processes. LipRise challenges this assumption, demonstrating lipid diversity can be achieved through non-enzymatic, prebiotic chemistry.
LipRise will identify prebiotic chemical processes that could have enabled the emergence of diverse membranes and show how these membranes support key cellular functions, such as membrane division, one of the hallmarks of a cell cycle. To achieve this, I will employ diversity-oriented prebiotic strategies to non-enzymatically convert primitive pluripotent lipids into a variety of lipids, which will then be used to build diverse membranes capable of interacting with protoenzymes and facilitating life-like functions.
The success of LipRise relies on my expertise at the intersection of chemistry and biology, the interdisciplinary skills of my team (prebiotic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, biophysics, and biochemistry), and preliminary evidence showing the feasibility of transforming lipids within membranes through non-enzymatic chemistry.
LipRise aims to revolutionize our understanding of life's origin and evolution by challenging the assumption that early cells were built on functional protoenzymes (and nucleic acids) within simple passive membranes. Instead, LipRise suggests that lipid diversity played a crucial role on early Earth, influencing the interactions between membranes and peptides during the emergence of life. It proposes that life-like lipid diversity, essential for membrane functions, could have arisen from pluripotent lipid precursors, shifting the focus from an RNA-peptide-driven...