Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biology A self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of polypeptides proposed as a stepping-stone to the origin of life

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In an environment of gentle shear, protocell growth and division are thus coupled processes.

    Better Bubbles 2009

  • What are rigorous definitions of: life protocell mechanism biological function

    2009 August - Telic Thoughts 2009

  • Our observations bring us closer to the laboratory synthesis of a complete protocell consisting of a self-replicating genome and a self-replicating membrane compartment.

    Better Bubbles 2009

  • Here we describe a simple and efficient pathway for model protocell membrane growth and division.

    Better Bubbles 2009

  • Or maybe Darwins faith in the future discovery of transitionals or Jack Szostacs faith in vesicles formed by fatty acids as the the cellular catalyst for the hypothetical protocell.

    Child Abuse Alert 2009

  • Small unilamellar fatty acid vesicles grow when fed with fatty acid micelles and can be forced to divide by extrusion, but this artificial division process results in significant loss of protocell contents during each division cycle.

    Better Bubbles 2009

  • Exploring Lifes Origins has a timeline of lifes evolution with sliders, and pages on understanding the RNA world and building protocells, with a nice animation of protocell replication.

    The Panda's Thumb: Prebiotic Chemistry Archives 2010

  • Exploring Lifes Origins has a timeline of lifes evolution with sliders, and pages on understanding the RNA world and building protocells, with a nice animation of protocell replication.

    The Panda's Thumb: Ian Musgrave Archives 2010

  • Luigi Luisi, published a somewhat adventurous manifesto in Nature in 2001, declaring that the way to make a synthetic cell was to get a protocell and a genetic molecule to grow and divide in parallel, with the molecules being encapsulated in the cell.

    COSMIC SOUP News from Mad Plato 2009

  • If a protocell is made to encapsulate a short piece of DNA and is then fed with nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, the nucleotides will spontaneously enter the cell and link into another DNA molecule.

    Archive 2009-06-01 News from Mad Plato 2009

  • Some of these lipids congregated into membrane-covered spheres known as protocells, the team reports.

    Lab-created ‘protocells’ provide clues to how life arose Mitch Leslie 2024

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