Chemical Evolutionary Pathways to Origins of Life
A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Origin of Life".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 2
Special Issue Editors
Interests: origin of life; transition metal sulfides; catalysis; hydrothermal conditions; acetylene; carbon fixation; chemical evolution; early metabolism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The question of how life originated on Earth has fascinated humanity for centuries and is therefore a topic of great interest. The answer to this question involves researchers from different fields, like physics, astronomy, chemistry, biochemistry and biology, and the approaches to solving the problem are widespread. Even within the evolutionary approach of the formation of biomolecules and life on Earth, there is a multitude of theories about how this could happen, quite apart from whether the formation actually took place on Earth, or if the first biomolecules had an extraterrestrial origin. These theories include the well-known metabolism-first and RNA world hypotheses. Also, it has been suggested that proteins or lipids built the first self-sustaining entities. Concerning the location of life’s evolution, there are also discussions on where to look: deep sea, shallow ponds, volcanic sites, hot or cold conditions, alkaline or acidic conditions, and so on. From a chemical point of view, inorganic precursors like CO2, CO, acetylene, ammonia, sulfides, and so on, would react in the first steps to becoming simple biomolecules like acetic acid, pyruvate, succinic acid, amino acids, fatty acids and amides, just to name a few. These starter reactions are followed by a metabolism-like reaction network, leading to more sophisticated biomolecules like peptides. In combination with the synthesis of lipid membranes, this may have led to a so-called pioneer organism. In combination with protein and enzyme formation, the genetic machinery of LUCA (last universal common ancestor) could have evolved. In this Special Issue, all possibilities for a chemical evolution of life should be further examined and highlighted.
Dr. Claudia Huber
Dr. Christian Seitz
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- origin of life
- metabolism-first
- early Earth
- iron–sulfur world
- chemical evolution
- cellularization
- surface catalysis
- pioneer organism
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