Membrane-spanning peptides and the origin of life

Abstract

An explanation is given as to why membrane-spanning peptides must have been the first "information-rich" molecules in the development of life. These peptides are stabilised in a lipid bilayer membrane environment and they are preferentially made from the simplest, and likewise oldest, of the amino acids that survive today. Transmembrane peptides can exercise functions that are essential for biological systems such as signal transduction and material transport across membranes. More complex peptides possessing catalytic properties could later develop on either side of the membrane as independently folding functional units formed by extension of the protruding ends of the transmembrane peptides within an aqueous environment and thereby give rise to more of the functions that are necessary for life. But the membrane was the cradle for the development of the first information-rich biomolecules.