Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 20: Posters - Physics of the Genesis of Life (Focus Session)

BP 20.7: Poster

Dienstag, 21. März 2017, 14:00–16:00, P1A

Phospholipids and the prebiotic formation of vesicles — •Maria Tsanakopoulou, Cecile Caumes, Claudia Percivalle, Bhavesh Patel, Colm Duffy, and John Sutherland — MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Francis Crick Avenue, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, CB2 0QH, UK

Glycerol-2-phosphate, which, along with the 1-phosphate, can readily be synthesised by phosphorylation of glycerol, was used as the substrate for the prebiotically plausible formation of alkyl chain phospholipids (1,3-bisacylated and 1-monoacylated glycerol-2-phosphate esters). All the alkyl chain acids were produced selectively in two steps from the aldol reaction of acetaldehyde and reduction by macroporous nickel and hypophosphite - known corrosion products of iron-nickel meteorites. The corresponding acyl imidazolides were used as activated forms of the acids for the formation of the phospholipids. Solutions of different concentrations of the phospholipids bearing the longer chain acyl groups were studied and were found to form vesicles, which could have played a role in the origins of the prokaryotic cells. If the mixture of the phospholipids contains a lot of the shorter chain derivatives, vesicles are not formed. In this case, it was found that recycling - iterative partial selective hydrolysis and reacylation - changes the composition of the mixture in favour of the longer chain derivatives with the result that vesicles can then be observed.