Abstract:
Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) phenomena are ubiquitous in biological systems, as various cellular LLPS structures control important biological processes. Due to their ease of in vitro assembly into membraneless compartments and their presence within modern cells, LLPS systems have been postulated to be one potential form that the first cells on Earth took on. Here, we present recent work regarding the structure, assembly, and function of various in vitro LLPS systems, including DNA liquid crystal coacervates and non-biological polyester microdroplets, that produce membraneless compartments which may have been relevant to the emergence of primitive compartments and the first cells. These compartment systems exhibit various life-like properties, such as compartmentalization, self-assembly, and catalysis, potentially providing scaffolds that could have effected the assembly of more complex chemical structures. Additionally, each of these systems can be dynamically assembled and disassembled based on prebiotically available selective environmental factors including temperature, salinity, and dehydration/rehydration from precipitation and seasonal/diurnal cycles, suggesting one way by which the inherent informational content within the membraneless structures could have promoted evolution or even evolved themselves. While there are still a number of remaining open questions regarding LLPS systems as models for primitive membraneless cells, including how modern biologies acquired such membraneless organelles, understanding the exact connection between LLPS systems and primitive cells will shed light into how primitive cells transitioned to modern cells.
Speakers: Dr. Tony Z. Jia, Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, Earth-Life Science Institute, Japan.
Speaker bio:
Tony completed his bachelor's degree in chemistry and business, economics, and management from Caltech in 2010, where he studied protein crystallography and lipid biophysics. This was followed by his PhD in chemistry from Harvard University in 2016, where he studied RNA sequencing techniques and non-enzymatic RNA polymerization biochemistry. Tony joined ELSI in 2017, and since then he has been working on projects related to prebiotic chemistry, protocells, and the origins of life.
Host: Dr. André Antunes, State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology.
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2020 at 15:30 JST (Fri, 26 Jun 2020 at 06:30 UTC)
Venue: Online
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This ELSI seminar is a part of the 'ASAP Astrobiology Webinar Series' in collaboration with the Astrobiology Society of Asia-Pacific (ASAP). The weekly series feature researchers from a variety of institutions in Asia and Oceania and astrobiology-related fields.
