Thermodynamic Inversion at the Origins of Life: A Comprehensive Approach

Dear Colleagues,

Suggested prebiotic models synthesized from abiogenic material can exhibit some of the characteristic properties of living cells: catalytic activity, the ability to self-replicate, etc. However, under laboratory conditions, they fail to obtain properties that determine their activity in relation to the environment, particularly the ability for expansion in space. This distinction is defined by different thermodynamic ways of organizing biological and non-biological (chemical) systems that determine their macroscopic state.

Non-biological natural systems evolve over time with a tendency to increase the entropy that follows from the second law. However, biological evolution proceeds in the thermodynamically opposite (negentropic) direction: although entropy also increases in biological systems, the total contribution of free energy and information increases faster in them. It follows that the transformation of prebiotic (micro)systems into the simplest living cells implies a radical change in their thermodynamic way of organizing, i.e., thermodynamic inversion (TI), that is possible under specific far from equilibrium conditions.

This Issue proposes to consider the processes that occur during the transition of prebiotic systems to life through a strong increase in the level of free energy in them. The topics considered include:

- Thermodynamic transformations during the origin of life;
- Hydrothermal and related systems, which create energy conditions conducive to the thermodynamic inversion necessary for the emergence of life;
- Energetics of life and a need for the establishment of an out-of-equilibrium (bifurcate) state when life emerges;
- Models for the emergence of life, which are amenable to the establishment of an out-of-equilibrium state;
- The known and hypothesized mechanisms by which the energy from the environment converts into chemical energy that life utilizes.

Dr. Vladimir Kompanichenko
Guest Editor

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