Where and how did life begin on Early Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago from non-living chemicals? A key necessity for the first cells on Earth is the ability to make compartments and evolve to facilitate the first chemical reactions. Membraneless coacervate microdroplets are excellent candidates to describe protocells, with the ability to partition, concentrate molecules and support biochemical reactions. Scientists have not yet shown how those microdroplets could have evolved to start life on earth. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden and at the Center for NanoScience (CeNS) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich now demonstrate for the first time, that the growth and division of membraneless microdroplets is possible in an environment which is similar to gas bubbles within a heated rock pore on Early Earth. Suggesting that life may have had its origin there.
