INTRODUCTION

TO LIFE SCIENCE
What is LIFE?
“How did life started?”
Objectives
1. Explain the evolving concept of life based on
emerging pieces of evidence.
2. Describe classic experiments that model
conditions which may have enabled the first
forms to evolve
3. Describe how unifying themes (e.g., structure
and function, evolution, and ecosystems) in the
study of life show the connections among living
things and how they interact with each other and
with their environment
I. The Origin of life: Condition of
early earth
According to Big bang theory, the universe
formed in an instant 13 to 25 billion years ago.
Earth and other planets formed about 4.6 billion
years ago form material released by explosions
of giant stars. Early in earth’s existence, the
planet had little or no free oxygen, and it received
a constant hail of meteorites.
Earth’s surface was initially molten, but by 4.3
billion years ago it had cooled enough for life
sustaining water to pool on its surface.
The effect of the bombardment on
the origin of life was significant.
Bombardment affected:

1. the temperature of the early Earth

2. the composition of the atmosphere
3. delivered biogenic elements to Earth (biogenic
elements are those chemicals common to all living
organisms - like phosphates)
4. the high energy released could also have delayed
the origin of life.
Astrobiology
 is the study of the origin, evolution,
distribution, and future of life in
the universe: extraterrestrial
life and life on Earth. Astrobiology
addresses the question of whether life
exists beyond Earth, and how humans
can detect it if it does.
A. Origin of organic
molecules
1. Reducing atmosphere hypothesis and the
Miller-Urey experiment
SOURCE OF LIFE’S FIRST BUILDING BLOCKS

Origin of organic
molecules
The First Organic Molecules

All living things consist of organic

molecules, centered around
the element carbon. Therefore, it is
likely that organic molecules evolved
before cells, perhaps as long as 4
billion years ago. How did these
building blocks of life first form?
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey
Experiment
 The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia
(NH3), and hydrogen (H2). The chemicals were all sealed
inside a sterile 5-liter glass flask connected to a 500 ml flask
half-full of liquid water. The liquid water in the smaller flask
was heated to induce evaporation, and the water vapour was
allowed to enter the larger flask.
 Continuous electrical sparks were fired between the
electrodes to simulate lightning in the water vapour and
gaseous mixture, and then the simulated atmosphere was
cooled again so that the water condensed and trickled into a
U-shaped trap at the bottom of the apparatus.
 Miller identified five amino acids present in the solution:
glycine, α-alanine, β-alanine, aspartic acid and α-
aminobutyric acid (AABA).
 Organic preliminary molecules could have been formed in a
reduced atmosphere
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey
Experiment
Abiogenesis or
biopoiesis
 Abiogenesis or biopoiesis is the natural process
of life arising from non-living matter, such as
simple organic compounds.
 Abiogenesis is studied through a combination of
laboratory experiments from the characteristics of
modern organisms, and aims to determine how
pre-life chemical reactions gave rise to life on
Earth.
Spontaneous
generation
 Aristotle an ancient Greek philosopher believe in
spontaneous generation which states that certain forms
of life form from non-living matter.
 Aristotle observe the truth that aphids arise from the
dew that falls on plants, flies from putrid matter, mice
from dirty hay, crocodiles from rotting logs at the bottom
of bodies of water, and so on.
 Heterogenesis believe that one form of life derived
from a different form (e.g., bees from flowers).
Biogenesis
• The hypothesis that living matter arises
only from other living matter
• The term biogenesis is usually credited to
either Henry Charlton Bastian or to
Thomas Henry Huxley. Bastian used the
term around 1869 in an unpublished
exchange with John Tyndall to mean "life-
origination or commencement"
Francesco Redi
(experiments on the Generation of
insect)
 Francesco Redi conduct the first experimental evidence
against spontaneous generation in 1668.
 In his experiment, he showed that no maggots appeared in
meat when flies were prevented from laying eggs.
 The alternative seemed to be biogenesis: that every living
thing came from a pre-existing living thing.
Louis Pasteur's experiment
 Louis Pasteur's experiment in 1859 demonstrating
that spontaneous generation does not occur
 Cells of today's organisms only arise from pre-
existing cells.
 Living matter cannot "generate spontaneously"
from non-living matter.
 Pasteur showed that bacterial growth on foods like
milk, and the infections in hospitals, were from pre-
existing cells replicating and being transported.
Louis Pasteur's
experiment
Organic monomers
appeared on the early
earth
A monomer (mono-, "one" + -mer, "part") is a molecule
that may bind chemically to other molecules to form a
(supramolecular) polymer.
Reducing atmosphere hypothesis
 A reducing atmosphere is an atmospheric condition in
which oxidation is prevented by removal of oxygen and other
oxidizing gases or vapours, and which may contain actively
reducing gases such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and
gases such as hydrogen sulfide that would be oxidized by
any present oxygen.
 With increased levels of oxygen, the evolution of the more
efficient aerobic respiration might have been enabled,
allowing animal life to evolve and thrive.
Reducing atmosphere
hypothesis
Earth's early atmosphere was anoxic,
meaning without free oxygen. Before
about 1.9 billion years ago the Earth's
atmosphere was a reducing mixture of
N2, CH4, H2O, and possibly NH3.
Solar radiation and lightning discharge
into the reducing gas mixture are
believed to have produced natural
organic compounds and eventually life
itself.
Formation of organic
polymers
Polymers are substances whose molecules have high molar
masses and are composed of a large number of repeating
units. Among naturally occurring polymers are proteins,
starches and cellulose.
Formation of organic
polymers
Further reactions between the increasing numbers of
organic monomers produce more complex molecules
which is the polymers.
Polymer chemical compound with high molecular
weight consisting of a number of structural units linked
together by covalent bonds. The structural units are
themselves called monomers;
Polymerization, in which smaller molecules called
monomers combine chemically to form a larger network
of connected molecules called polymers.
Formation of organic
polymers
 Primordial soup a solution rich in organic
compounds in the primitive oceans of the earth,
from which life is hypothesized to have originated.
 A gradual building up of these complex organic
molecules in the ocean would have formed a
phospholipid bilayer which eventually formed
protobionts.
 Protobionts were the precursor to early life, and
resemble very simple cells.
 They are microspheres composed of inorganic and
organic molecules trapped inside of a lipid bilayer
membrane.
The earliest cell:
Prokaryotes
Prokaryotes a microscopic single-celled organism
that has neither a distinct nucleus with a membrane
nor other specialized organelles. Prokaryotes
include the bacteria and cyanobacteria.
Prokaryotic Cell
Prokaryotic
The first cells would have had the simplest
cell structure.
a microscopic single-celled organism
that has neither a distinct nucleus with
a membrane nor other specialized
organelles. Prokaryotes include the
bacteria and cyanobacteria.
Prokaryotes
 Living things have evolved into three large clusters
of closely related organisms, called "domains":
Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota. Archaea and
Bacteria are small, relatively simple cells
surrounded by a membrane and a cell wall, with a
circular strand of DNA containing their genes. They
are called prokaryotes.
What were the first cells like?
Most biologists think it likely that the first
organisms were:
Heterotrophic
They would have fed on organic molecules
that were already present from the millions of
years of chemical evolution in the "soup."
Anaerobic
(of an organism or tissue) living in the
absence of air or free oxygen.
Aerobic respiration
 Aerobic respiration is the process of producing
cellular energy involving oxygen. Cells break down
food in the mitochondria in a long, multistep
process that produces roughly 36 ATP. The first
step in is glycolysis, the second is the citric acid
cycle and the third is the electron transport system.
 Anaerobic respiration is a form of respiration
using electron acceptors other than oxygen.
Although oxygen is not used as the final electron
acceptor, the process still uses a respiratory
electron transport chain called physolmere; it is
respiration without oxygen.
What were the first cells like?
 "Cyanobacteria" a phylum of bacteria that obtain their
energy through photosynthesis. The name "cyanobacteria"
comes from the color of the bacteria which is blue.

 By producing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis,

cyanobacteria are thought to have converted the early
oxygen-poor, reducing atmosphere, into an oxidizing one,
which gradually increased the oxygen portion of the
atmosphere, changing it to what is known as an oxidizing
atmosphere, that dramatically changed the composition of life
forms.


Rise of eukaryotes
Eukaryotes an organism consisting of a cell or cells in
which the genetic material is DNA in the form of
chromosomes contained within a distinct nucleus.
Eukaryotes include all living organisms other than the
eubacteria and archaebacteria.
The origin of eukaryotic cells
Eukaryotic cells originated about 1.5
billion years ago.
So for about 2 billion years (more than
1/2 the history of life), there were only
prokaryotes on the planet.
The first eukaryotes were protists and
the oldest eukaryotic fossils that we can
assign in a modern world are the type of
red algae.
From Prokaryotes to Eukaryotes
Endosymbiosis- chloroplast mitochondria
appear to have evolved from smaller
prokaryotes which became incorporated,
possibly after being eaten “by a larger cell”
 Mitochondria are though to have been originally
heterotropic cells in the process of aerobic
respiration to release energy.
 Chloroplast are thought to have evolved from
autotropic cells, able to use light energy to
produce food and release energy.
 Endosymbiosis - Origin of
Mitochondria and Chloroplasts
 One of the most fascinating concepts to gain popularity in
recent times is the endosymbiotic theory for the origin of
the eukaryotic cell.
 According to this theory: a prokaryotic cell capable of
engulfing other prokaryotes, engulfed aerobic bacteria.
 Rather than digesting them, the bacteria remain, as
symbionts, benefiting the host cell by removing harmful O2
and helping in the production of ATP. - As interdependence
between the aerobic bacterium and the host cell grows, the
bacterium becomes the mitochondrion.
 Some of these cells also engulf and keep blue-green algal
cells which become chloroplasts.
Endosymbiosis - Origin of
Mitochondria and Chloroplasts
The endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria
and chloroplasts is widely believed because
of the many similarities between prokaryotes
and these organelles:

1. Mitochondria and chloroplasts are similar

in size and shape to prokaryotes.
2. Mitochondria and chloroplasts have their
own DNA that lack histone proteins, that
is circular, and is attached to the inner
membrane as is the DNA of prokaryotes
3. Organelle ribosomes are more similar in
size to prokaryotic ribosomes
The endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria
and chloroplasts is widely believed because
of the many similarities between prokaryotes
and these organelles:

4. Mitochondria and chloroplasts divide by fission, not

mitosis.
5. Mitochondria arise from preexisting mitochondria;
chloroplasts arise from preexisting chloroplasts
(they are not manufactured through the direction of
nuclear genes).
6. Outer membrane of chloroplasts or mitochondria
would have been synthesized by the original "host"
cell and used to engulf the endosymbiotic bacteria
that became the mitochondria. The outer membrane
has structural and chemical similarities to the
eukaryote cell membrane.
Mitochondria Have DNA
 Mitochondria and chloroplasts have striking
similarities to bacteria cells. They have their own
DNA, which is separate from the DNA found in the
nucleus of the cell. And both organelles use their
DNA to produce many proteins and enzymes
required for their function. A double membrane
surrounds both mitochondria and chloroplasts,
further evidence that each was ingested by a
primitive host. The two organelles also reproduce
like bacteria, replicating their own DNA and
directing their own division.
Examples of Eukaryotic Cell
 http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/origins_debate_ad
v.pdf
 https://sites.google.com/site/evolutionarylifeorigins/the-iron-
sulfur-world-theory
 http://www.rsc.org/eic/2016/05/origin-life-molecules-living-
organisms
 https://www.sfu.ca/colloquium/PDC_Top/OoL/hypotheses-on-
the-origins-of-life/others.html
 https://www2.gwu.edu/~darwin/BiSc151/Eukaryotes/Eukaryot
es.html