Linked Life Data

11084632

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/11084632

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
12
pubmed:dateCreated
2001-2-6
pubmed:abstractText
This essay presents a scenario of the origin of life that is based on analysis of biological architecture and mechanical design at the microstructural level. My thesis is that the same architectural and energetic constraints that shape cells today also guided the evolution of the first cells and that the molecular scaffolds that support solid-phase biochemistry in modern cells represent living microfossils of past life forms. This concept emerged from the discovery that cells mechanically stabilize themselves using tensegrity architecture and that these same building rules guide hierarchical self-assembly at all size scales (Sci. Amer 278:48-57;1998). When combined with other fundamental design principles (e.g., energy minimization, topological constraints, structural hierarchies, autocatalytic sets, solid-state biochemistry), tensegrity provides a physical basis to explain how atomic and molecular elements progressively self-assembled to create hierarchical structures with increasingly complex functions, including living cells that can self-reproduce.
pubmed:keyword
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Dec
pubmed:issn
0265-9247
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
22
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
1160-70
pubmed:dateRevised
2010-11-18
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2000
pubmed:articleTitle
The origin of cellular life.
pubmed:affiliation
Departments of Pathology and Surgery, Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Review