Liquid crystals in biology II. Origins and processes of life

Abstract

Part II of this review elaborates a hypothesis presented in Part I (2003 Liq. Cryst. 30, 541) and earlier publications. This hypothesis proposes that specified naturally occurring substances in the aqueous lyotropic mesophase of the liquid crystalline state of matter possess the ability to replicate, polymerize spontaneously and engage in further transitions to form ordered two- and three-dimensional layered, cubic, helical and spherulitic structures resembling those described geochemically, and observed experimentally in elementary forms of living substance. This ability uses energy originating in the kinetics of particles showing Brownian movements, spin and tensions at liquid–liquid and solid–liquid interfaces. Energy is derived also from chemiosmosis, phosphorylation, negative entropy and bonding by covalent and electro-weak forces to build macromolecules in ordered sequences of lipids, peptides and nucleic acids. These can polymerize to form glyco- and lipo-proteins, polynucleotides, anabolic and catalytic enzymes, plausibly and causally associated with the morphogenesis, metabolism and replication of protista, plankton and other primitive forms of life observed in prebiotic pools and surfaces of the cooling litho-hydrosphere of planet earth.

Interactions in these ecological niches would undoubtedly promote biochemical evolution compatible with self-organization of diversified living processes. These phenomena reveal plausible, natural mechanisms for formation of bilayer membranes with ionic channels, and other ordered structures providing spaces in which oxidative reactions and syntheses may proceed. All of this can be linked causally to early steps in animation of matter in accordance with laws governing particle physics and chemistry, templates and the general logic of molecular memories expressed in polynucleotides and proteins. Phenomena indicative of transfer of information, cellular organization, metabolism and transmission of neural signals are identifiable additionally as mechanisms for diversification and evolution. There are, however, credibility gaps in trying to extend this reasoning to sexual reproduction, speciation, competitive survival and ontogeny in the higher plants and metazoa. Various probabilities are discussed in statistical and physico-chemical terms. It is suggested that these could justify the hypothesis in so far as natural processes are sufficient to engender conditions for emergence of primitive life and Darwinian evolution in eco-niches of terrestrial space and measurable time. But there are also, in the unique utilization of energy, exploitation of advantages and adaptive capabilities of organisms at all levels to changing environmental stresses, many indications of teleonomic forces operating in ways for which there is no explanation in accordance with the laws of physical or chemical processes. This might be because understanding of particle physics and wave mechanics is insufficiently deployed in molecular biology, or because the laws of physics are scientifically incomplete in this respect.

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Gordon T. Stewart

Private address 29/8 Inverleith Place Edinburgh, EH3 5QD, UK