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proteinoid

n. (context protein English) A polypeptide formed abiotically from by heating a mixture of amino acids

Wikipedia
Proteinoid

Proteinoids, or thermal proteins, are protein-like, often cross-linked molecules formed abiotically from amino acids. A slightly altered definition of proteinoids is from Hayakawa et al. (1967): "macromolecular preparations of mean molecular weights in the thousands, containing most of the twenty amino acids found in protein hydrolyzates. Although these polymers have other properties of contemporary protein as well, identity with the latter is not a necessary inference".

Its discoverer, Sidney W. Fox proposed the hypothesis that proteinoids were a precursor to the first living cells ( protocell).

Usage examples of "proteinoid".

These properties were not, of course, all shared by all proteinoids, for Fox could vary the properties of the proteinoid by varying the amino acids in the initial mixture, thus changing their susceptibility or resemblance to enzymes and conferring or removing their hormonal activity.

They invite one to picture the first cell as built of proteinoid, every molecule of its substance a generalized enzyme of very low efficiency.

And thanks to the nature of the primordial Earth, these spheres could have been formed in great profusion every time dry proteinoid was washed off some rocky ledge by a wave or rain.

If they are left standing in their solutions of proteinoid, they will, like yeast cells, form small buds which enlarge, split off from their parent, and grow by absorbing proteinoid from the solution.

A microsphere could thus be formed with a little nucleic acid able to replicate itself, perhaps with a little help from the proteinoid of the microsphere, or with a molecule similar to chlorophyll that would enable it to use the energy of the sun without having to wait for that energy to transform the simple chemicals of the atmosphere into more proteinoid.

It will be able to make its own from simpler materials, and it may even do so by breaking down the amino acids and proteinoids around it to get the basic building blocks it needs.

With waves and tides and hot rocks and solar evaporation to concentrate the amino acids and proteinoids found in the seas and to turn them into the precursors of life, with lightning and heat and radiation and ultraviolet light to turn simple molecules into more complex ones, with the physics and chemistry of the universe itself to produce the necessary elements and simple compounds in appropriate amounts, it may even be said that life on Earth was inevitable, that it had to appear as soon as a microsphere was formed with just the right bit of nucleic acid within itself.

A microsphere could thus be formed with a little nucleic acid able to replicate itself, perhaps with a little help from the proteinoid of the microsphere, or with a molecule similar to chlorophyll that would enable it to use the energy of the sun without having to wait for that energy to transform the simple chemicals of the atmosphere into more proteinoid.