Clay Could Have Encouraged First Cells to Form

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

While many armchair philosophers are searching for the meaning of life, researchers are hard at work investigating the origins of life on Earth. New findings suggest that a lump of clay could have provided a platform for the formation of primordial cells.

Previous research indicated that chemicals found in so-called montmorillonite clay could catalyze reactions involved in constructing RNA from nucleotides. Martin M. Hanczyc, Shelly M. Fujikawa and Jack W. Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital determined that the clay could also encourage fatty acids to form small fluid-filled sacs known as vesicles. Indeed, vesicles developed 100 times faster in the presence of clay than they did without it, suggesting that clay could have "greatly facilitated the emergence of the first cells," the authors write in today's issue of the journal Science. (In the image above, the red indicates RNA that is attached to clay particles encapsulated within a vesicle.) Once forged, the vesicles grew by incorporating additional fatty acids. The scientists also caused the sacs to divide by forcing them through small pores, a process that the vesicles survived without losing their contents.

"Now that we have a proof-of-principle that growth and division is possible in a purely physical-chemical system, we are working on a way to get this cycle to function in a way that is more natural," Szostak notes. "Clearly, there are a lot of complicated and interesting processes going on here, and how this pathway leads to biological systems is not at all straightforward."

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American