Question

Scientists have hypothesized that life arose from the mix of chemical compounds present in the prebiotic soup on the Earth's surface. Experiments in labs today have shown that fatty acids can spontaneously form various organized structures, including vesicles. How does this characteristic of fatty acids work in conjunction with known early Earth conditions to suggest a potential explanation for the origin of life?

a. evidence of minerals such as iron on early Earth supports the idea that compounds such as fatty acids could have formed vesicles, trapping these minerals and forming catalytic reaction centers.

b. Evidence of simple carbon compounds such as methane on early Earth supports the idea that larger carbon compounds such as fatty acids could have spontaneously evolved.

c. Evidence of volcanic gases such as hydrogen on early Earth support the idea that the environment was highly reactive, which would have allowed fatty acids to polymerize to form much larger biomolecules.

d. Evidence of water on early Earth supports the idea that simple fatty acids could have undergone self-assemble in a watery environment to form the first cell membranes.

An explanation of your answer would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Answer is d.) Evidence of water on early earth supports the idea that simple fatty acids could have undergone self assemble in a watery environment to form the first cell memberanes.

Like modern cell consists of phospholipid, which has hydrophobic tail and hydrophilic head. When placed in water these arrange itself in a manner that tails are protected or shielded from water resulting in memberane structure (bilayer, micelles or vesicles). Similar to phospholipids, the fatty acids have hydrophobic tail and hydrophilic head can form the same in the such conditions (in watery environment).

In prebiotic conditions the formation of fatty acids by hydrothermal vents thus various length of fatty are released in surrounding water but found fatty acids are low concentration. For formation of micelles or vesicles require high concentration. Therefore pool of waters may have slowly accumulated fatty acids by cycle of shinkage by evaporation and growth by addition of diluted fatty acids solutions. Thus over the time pool of water have accumulated high concentration of fatty acids to forms micelles or vesicles together to form cell memberane.

Thankyou...