Abiotic Synthesis and Role of Amphiphiles in the Encapsulation Process in Life’s Origin

Abstract

In a prebiotic world, the first form of cells, the protocells, were able to incorporate functional molecules such as polymers with self-replicative properties thanks to primitive forms of membranes. Lipid boundaries represent the chemico-physical barrier between the inner and the outer part of a modern cellular environment. However, one could expect that other types of boundaries were present in primitive compartments. In this chapter we present a prebiotic chemistry perspective that includes the synthesis of amphiphiles under prebiotic conditions, their role in protocells boundary formation and how synthetic protocells were assembled to simulate plausible.