Origin of Life Roadmap: The Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis and Viruses
I am personally researching the origin of life, specifically the process leading up to the first cells appearing on Earth. My approach to this research is not from the perspective of chemistry or biology, but rather from a systems engineering standpoint.
My work is grounded in the idea of chemical evolution, where chemicals on Earth underwent changes due to the energy from the sun and geothermal sources, leading to the gradual synthesis of the components of cells.
In previous articles, I posited that primordial bodies of water, like ponds and lakes, connected by terrestrial river flows and the atmospheric cycle of evaporation and rainfall, functioned as a network of chemical factories.
I believe that the chemical factories within this network underwent dramatic evolution. Structured production lines appeared within these chemical factories, which utilized the Earth’s terrain, like ponds. Eventually, these production lines were encapsulated by membranes, leading to the emergence of micro-chemical factories.
In this article, I will recapitulate the above hypotheses, now named the Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis and the Chemical Factory Evolution Hypothesis. Building on this, I will discuss the emergence of self-replication mechanisms, which were not previously included in these hypotheses.
Self-replication in life refers to DNA. Believing that this mechanism suddenly appeared is difficult. Instead, it likely developed through stages. While revisiting the Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis, I realized that viruses, which use cells for self-replication, could provide insights.
In my research on the origin of life, I’ve believed that the greatest challenge is to rationally explain the process leading to the formation of DNA. This has been a significant hurdle, and I intuitively feel that the realization that viruses can potentially use chemical factories instead of cells for replication could be a breakthrough.
Now, let’s review the newly named hypotheses.
Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis
In diverse environments with different material conditions, chemical substances accumulate and undergo reactions with energy inputs, continuously transforming raw chemical materials into products. These products then travel through terrestrial rivers or atmospheric routes, like evaporation, clouds, and rainfall, reaching other bodies of water. Here, new reactions produce new chemicals.
But it’s not just about a series of isolated reactions. With diverse chemical reactions repeating in a vast network of interconnected water bodies, self-reinforcing feedback loops can form.
A substance “a” produced in Pond A might stabilize or activate the production of substance “b” in Pond B. This “b” might then enhance the production of substance “c” in Pond C, which in turn could boost the production of substance “a” in Pond A. Such cyclical structures reinforce chemical production, leading to an increase and spread of substances a, b, and c on Earth. Even if these compounds are somewhat fragile, as long as their production rate surpasses their degradation rate, they can proliferate.
As time progresses, these chemicals mix, producing even more diverse compounds, and new feedback loops emerge. Using Earth’s terrain and weather patterns, increasingly complex chemicals can be formed. This is the basis of the Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis.
Chemical Factory Evolution Hypothesis
Chemical factories within this network undergo dramatic evolution during the chemical evolution of the origins of life.
Early chemical factories utilized Earth’s terrain, such as ponds. Over time, viscous and fibrous materials emerged, paving the way for specialized production lines. An innovative leap occurred with the advent of lipid membranes, encapsulating these production lines and leading to the appearance of micro-chemical factories.
Viscous substances naturally form clumps, and localized looped chemical reactions can produce fibrous structures. Lipid membranes, formed from fatty acids with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic ends, naturally assemble into spherical structures in water.
These features of chemical factories — viscous clumps, fibrous structures, and membranes — can be formed through relatively simple chemical reactions. But it’s not purely chemical reactions; it’s also about the natural mechanisms that give rise to physical structures. Instead of viewing this solely as chemical evolution, it’s perhaps more accurate to see it as structural evolution. The evolution of chemical factories is achieved through the dual processes of chemical and structural evolution.
Chemical Factory Network Evolution Hypothesis
As chemical factories evolve, forming even more advanced and complex networks, they produce increasingly intricate chemical compounds, leading to the formation of diverse chemical feedback loops.
In the early stages, the chemical factory network utilized the Earth’s water cycle to transport chemicals between chemical factories, which are essentially bodies of water. Eventually, with the emergence of production lines within these factories that use viscous masses and fibrous structures, two additional dimensions to the transportation of chemicals are introduced.
One is the transfer of chemicals between production lines within the chemical factory. The other is the movement of chemicals within individual production lines.
The movement of chemicals between production lines in a chemical factory likely harnesses the water circulation within a body of water. Factors like the inflow and outflow of water from rivers, temperature changes due to day-night cycles and weather variations, the presence of geothermal sources, or spots where water or gas erupts, can induce flow and circulation within these water bodies, moving the chemicals.
Within production lines, chemicals can move through natural diffusion in water or viscous substances. The fibrous structure of the production lines can guide this transfer. If the fibers are tubular, they can facilitate the movement of chemicals. More advanced methods, like motor proteins that act similarly to railways for transporting substances, can be developed.
Even after the chemical factories are encapsulated by membranes, the movement of chemicals continues in the same manner. But this encapsulation represents a significant turning point for the chemical factory network. Once encapsulated, the movement of chemicals inside the membrane becomes entirely independent of the Earth’s water cycle or any local water circulation within larger bodies. The movement becomes an environment-independent process.
The production lines within these membranes can be seen as mini chemical factories with somewhat blurry boundaries. And it’s possible for these internal factories to encapsulate other smaller ones with their own membranes. In this way, even within a membrane, there’s a network of chemical factories capable of autonomously transporting chemicals without external influences. This is a monumental evolution from the early chemical factory networks and forms the basis of the Chemical Factory Network Evolution Hypothesis.
During this phase, there’s still a need to absorb energy and nutrients from the external environment and to expel excess heat energy and substances. This interaction with the outside continues, and the Earth’s water cycle remains essential for bringing necessary nutrients closer. However, during periods without external nutrient supply or when sufficient energy is stored internally, the system can isolate itself from the external environment and function solely based on internal chemical changes. In such situations, the system truly operates as an independent entity, not just in terms of energy and nutrients but also in terms of chemical transportation.
Roadmap to the Mechanism of Self-Replication
As chemical factories and their networks evolve, forming autonomous chemical factory networks within membranes, they come remarkably close to the structure of cells as we know them. Supported by the principle of self-reinforcing feedback loops, I firmly believe that such chemical evolution is very plausible.
However, this structure only captures half the aspect of the cells, or life, as we know it. The other half is the mechanism of self-replication, namely DNA.
As mentioned at the outset, this is a challenging issue, but my recent insight is that viruses may hold the key.
Viruses carry genetic information but lack the capability to self-replicate independently. Viruses infiltrate living cells and use the cell’s mechanisms to replicate themselves.
Consequently, it’s commonly believed that viruses couldn’t exist without cells, making their appearance in the origin of life uncertain. But, under my Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis, one could posit that viruses utilized cells as chemical factories for their replication. As long as there’s a mechanism available for self-replication, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a cell; even a body of water would suffice. This suggests that viruses might have existed on Earth and been capable of self-replication long before cells appeared.
The mechanism of a virus, compared to that of a cell, is simpler. Thus, it’s quite natural and logical to hypothesize that if self-replication is possible, viruses could have emerged before cells.
This provides a significant milestone in understanding the emergence of the mechanism of self-replication in the origin of life. In other words, we can envision a roadmap where chemicals transition from an initial phase without any self-replication mechanism to an intermediary phase where structures like viruses utilize chemical factory mechanisms for replication. Subsequently, a system like DNA, capable of self-replication, emerges.
Based on this roadmap, the evolution from the initial self-reinforcing mechanisms in the chemical factory network to a structure like a virus that mediates self-replication using chemical factory mechanisms becomes the first step. The subsequent transition from this virus-like structure to a cell possessing DNA capable of complete self-replication becomes the second step. Using the mechanism of viruses as a milestone allows for a segmented examination of this process.
In Conclusion
In this article, I have been able to organize my previous examinations of the self-reinforcing feedback loop mechanism in chemical evolution, the promotion of chemical evolution using Earth’s terrain and water cycle, and the twin ideas of chemical and structural evolution, into the Chemical Factory Network Hypothesis.
Furthermore, building upon the idea that viruses can execute self-replication within chemical factories, I was able to sketch a roadmap leading up to the emergence of the mechanism of self-replication in living organisms.
Based on this roadmap, constructing a narrative around the evolution of the replication mechanism might allow for a reasonably plausible hypothesis for the process leading to the formation of DNA, what I have long considered the biggest challenge.
