Thermodynamic consequences of molecular crowding in information growth during pre biotic evolution

TL;DR

This paper develops a thermodynamic theory explaining how molecular crowding influenced the growth of informational molecules like RNA during prebiotic evolution, without enzymatic assistance, highlighting its fundamental role in early life.

Contribution

It introduces a novel thermodynamic framework linking molecular crowding to prebiotic information growth, emphasizing its universal importance across all life forms.

Findings

Molecular crowding is a crucial trait in cellular evolution.

Thermodynamic effects facilitate RNA growth without enzymes.

Molecular crowding likely played a key role in prebiotic molecular evolution.

Abstract

The work presented in this paper essentially focuses at providing a scientific theory to explain the growth of information bearing molecules (size and information contents) without the need of any enzymatic system. It infers the footprints of molecular evolution in the cell interior for a property common to all life forms. It is deducted that molecular crowding is a vital cellular trait common to the all types of cells (primitive or highly evolved). It is argued that this trait is pervasive and must have been incorporated at some stage as a common vital feature of life. If this feature has central importance it must have been part of the pre-biotic information growth of information bearing molecules. The thermodynamic consequences of molecular crowding on the growth of RNA (50-100bp long) in the absence of enzyme system were calculated.