Self-assembly of Deinococcus radiodurans supports nanocell scenario of life origin

Alexandra Bernadotte; Valeriya Semenova; Vitor A M Musial; Anna Kasprzykowska; Roman A Zubarev

doi:10.15190/d.2017.2

Self-assembly of Deinococcus radiodurans supports nanocell scenario of life origin

Discoveries (Craiova). 2017 May 8;5(1):e72. doi: 10.15190/d.2017.2.

Authors

Alexandra Bernadotte^{1

2}, Valeriya Semenova¹, Vitor A M Musial¹, Anna Kasprzykowska¹, Roman A Zubarev^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Physiological Chemistry I, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
² Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation.
³ SciLifeLab, Stockholm, Sweden.

Abstract

In many origin-of-life scenarios, first a kit of elements and simple compounds emerges, then a primitive membrane and then a nanocell with a minimal genome is self-assembled, which then proceeds to multiply by copying itself while mutating. Testing this scenario, we selected Deinococcus Radiodurans known for its exceptional self-repair properties as a model system, separated its bacterial lysis into DNA, RNA and protein fractions, while lipids were used for liposome formation. The fractions were sealed in glass tubes individually and in combinations and stored for three weeks. Upon seeding on Petri dishes, the fractions containing liposomes together with nucleic acid and/or proteins gave in total 19 colonies of Deinococcus radiodurans (confirmed by proteomics), while liposome-free fractions as well as liposome-only fractions gave no colonies. The self-assembly of viable cells from essentially dead mixtures validates the lyposome-based origin-of-life scenario.

Keywords: Bacterial self-assembly; life origin; nanocell.