Devaraj, N. K. In situ synthesis of phospholipid membranes. J. Org. Chem. 82, 5997–6005 (2017).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Dowhan, W. A retrospective: use of Escherichia coli as a vehicle to study phospholipid synthesis and function. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1831, 471–494 (2013).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Vance, J. E. Phospholipid synthesis and transport in mammalian cells. Traffic 16, 1–18 (2015).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Deamer, D. The role of lipid membranes in life’s origin. Life 7, 5 (2017).

Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Luisi, P. L., Walde, P. & Oberholzer, T. Lipid vesicles as possible intermediates in the origin of life. Curr. Opin. Colloid Interface Sci. 4, 33–39 (1999).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Chen, I. A. & Walde, P. From self-assembled vesicles to protocells. Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Biol. 2, 1–13 (2010).

Article  Google Scholar 

Szostak, J. W., Bartel, D. P. & Luisi, P. L. Synthesizing life. Nature 409, 387–390 (2001).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Zepik, H. H., Walde, P. & Ishikawa, T. Vesicle formation from reactive surfactants. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 47, 1323–1325 (2008).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Huang, Y. et al. Molecular and compound-specific isotopic characterization of monocarboxylic acids in carbonaceous meteorites. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 69, 1073–1084 (2005).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Yuen, G. U. & Kvenvolden, K. A. Monocarboxylic acids in Murray and Murchison carbonaceous meteorites. Nature 246, 301–303 (1973).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Mccollom, T. M., Ritter, G. & Simoneit, B. R. T. Lipid synthesis under hydrothermal conditions by Fischer–Tropsch-type reactions. Orig. Life Evol. Biosph. 29, 153–166 (1999).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Lai, J. C.-Y., Pearce, B. K. D., Pudritz, R. E. & Lee, D. Meteoritic abundances of fatty acids and potential reaction pathways in planetesimals. Icarus 319, 685–700 (2019).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Wang, A. & Szostak, J. W. Lipid constituents of model protocell membranes. Emerg. Top. Life. Sci. 3, 537–542 (2019).

Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Monnard, P.-A. & Deamer, D. W. Membrane self-assembly processes: steps toward the first cellular life. Anat. Rec. 268, 196–207 (2002).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Deamer, D. W. Boundary structures are formed by organic components of the Murchison carbonaceous chondrite. Nature 317, 792–794 (1985).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Budin, I., Bruckner, R. J. & Szostak, J. W. Formation of protocell-like vesicles in a thermal diffusion column. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131, 9628–9629 (2009).

Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Budin, I., Debnath, A. & Szostak, J. W. Concentration-driven growth of model protocell membranes. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 134, 20812–20819 (2012).

Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Budin, I., Prywes, N., Zhang, N. & Szostak, J. W. Chain-length heterogeneity allows for the assembly of fatty acid vesicles in dilute solutions. Biophys. J. 107, 1582–1590 (2014).

Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Apel, C. L., Deamer, D. W. & Mautner, M. N. Self-assembled vesicles of monocarboxylic acids and alcohols: conditions for stability and for the encapsulation of biopolymers. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1559, 1–9 (2002).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Monnard, P.-A., Apel, C. L., Kanavarioti, A. & Deamer, D. W. Influence of ionic inorganic solutes on self-assembly and polymerization processes related to early forms of life: implications for a prebiotic aqueous medium. Astrobiology 2, 139–152 (2002).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Namani, T. & Deamer, D. W. Stability of model membranes in extreme environments. Orig. Life. Evol. Biosph. 38, 329–341 (2008).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Jordan, S. F. et al. Promotion of protocell self-assembly from mixed amphiphiles at the origin of life. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 3, 1705–1714 (2019).

Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Maurer, S. E. et al. Vesicle self-assembly of monoalkyl amphiphiles under the effects of high ionic strength, extreme pH, and high temperature environments. Langmuir 34, 15560–15568 (2018).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Maurer, S. E., Deamer, D. W., Boncella, J. M. & Monnard, P.-A. Chemical evolution of amphiphiles: glycerol monoacyl derivatives stabilize plausible prebiotic membranes. Astrobiology 9, 979–987 (2009).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Ourisson, G. & Nakatani, Y. The terpenoid theory of the origin of cellular life: the evolution of terpenoids to cholesterol. Chem. Biol. 1, 11–23 (1994).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Plobeck, N., Eifler, S., Brisson, A., Nakatani, Y. & Ourisson, G. Sodium di-polyprenyl phosphates form “primitive” membranes. Tetrahedron Lett. 33, 5249–5252 (1992).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Griffith, E. C., Rapf, R. J., Shoemaker, R. K., Carpenter, B. K. & Vaida, V. Photoinitiated synthesis of self-assembled vesicles. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 136, 3784–3787 (2014).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Gibard, C., Bhowmik, S., Karki, M., Kim, E.-K. & Krishnamurthy, R. Phosphorylation, oligomerization and self-assembly in water under potential prebiotic conditions. Nat. Chem. 10, 212–217 (2018).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Bonfio, C. et al. Length-selective synthesis of acylglycerol-phosphates through energy-dissipative cycling. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 3934–3939 (2019).

Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Pulletikurti, S., Veena, K. S., Yadav, M., Deniz, A. A. & Krishnamurthy, R. Experimentally modeling the emergence of prebiotically plausible phospholipid vesicles. Chem 10, 1839–1867 (2024).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Brea, R. J., Cole, C. M. & Devaraj, N. K. In situ vesicle formation by native chemical ligation. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 14102–14105 (2014).

Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Brea, R. J., Rudd, A. K. & Devaraj, N. K. Nonenzymatic biomimetic remodeling of phospholipids in synthetic liposomes. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 8589–8594 (2016).

Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Foden, C. S. et al. Prebiotic synthesis of cysteine peptides that catalyze peptide ligation in neutral water. Science 370, 865–869 (2020).

Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Liu, L. et al. Enzyme-free synthesis of natural phospholipids in water. Nat. Chem. 12, 1029–1034 (2020).