1.D.

1 Hypotheses of Life’s Origin

There are several hypotheses about the

natural origin of life on Earth, each with
supporting scientific evidence.
Scientific evidence supports the various
models of the origin of life on earth.
 Louis Pasteur

• Experimentally found that

the growth of bacteria in
nutrient broths was due to
biogenesis, not
spontaneous generation.
So, if life only comes from life, how did life
on Earth begin?
 In the “Organic Soup Model,” life first
formed in the early oceans, which were a
mixture of water and dissolved organic
compounds: the building blocks of life.
 Miller-Urey Experiment
In 1952, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey showed that
organic compounds could be synthesized from
inorganic precursors.
 Alternate hypothesis: Did meteors seed
Earth with organic molecules from space?
(Panspermia Model)
 The Murchison meteorite found in
Australia is rich in organic compounds,
including 70 amino acids and nucleotide
bases.
So…primitive Earth provided inorganic
precursors from which organic molecules
could have been synthesized due to the
presence of available free energy and the
absence of a significant quantity of oxygen.
 In turn, these molecules served as
monomers or building blocks for the
formation of more complex molecules,
including amino acids and nucleotides..
 The joining of these monomers produced
polymers with the ability to replicate, store
and transfer information.
 These complex reaction sets could have
occurred in solution (organic soup model) or as
reactions on solid reactive surfaces, such as clay.
These polymers were packaged into
spontaneously forming protobionts:
droplets with fatty membranes.
 Liposomes: membrane-bound droplets
that form when lipids are added to water.

• spontaneously organize into a lipid bilayer

• selectively permeable
 The RNA World Hypothesis proposes
that RNA could have been the earliest
genetic material.
• RNA is important in protein synthesis and can
also have enzyme-like functions.
RNA catalysts are called ribozymes.
• Ribozymes probably were protected inside
protobionts.
• Natural selection would act on such RNA-
carrying protobionts; the most successful
would increase in number.
RNA would later provide the template
for the first DNA to be assembled.
Conditions on early Earth made
the origin of life possible.
 Prokaryotic Evolution

Stomatolites – oldest known fossils (3.5 bya).

Formed from many layers of bacteria and sediment.
 The First Prokaryotes

• Autotrophic, some
photosynthetic.
• Heterotrophs
emerged later.
• The only life form
on earth for about
1.5 billion years.
 Electron Transport Systems

• Electron transport
systems and
chemiosmotic
mechanisms (ATP
production)
common to all life;
evolved before the
three domains
diverged.
 Photosynthesis

• Early photosynthetic
bacteria did not split
water and liberate
oxygen.
• The only
photosynthetic
bacteria are
cyanobacteria.
 When oxygen was first produced, it saturated
the oceans, then rusted iron (the first “red
rock” appeared). Finally, oxygen gassed out of
the oceans and entered the atmosphere for
the first time.

The new oxygen-rich atmosphere doomed many

of the ancient prokaryotic groups to
extinction.
Eukaryotic cells arose around 2.1- 2.7
bya.
 Endosymbiotic Theory

• The ancestor of mitochondria was an aerobic

heterotroph.
• The ancestor of plastids (such as a chloroplast)
was a photosynthetic prokaryote.
• An ancestral prokaryote came to live in a host
cell.
Serial endosymbiosis – sequence of
endosymbiotic events that led to the
first ancestral eukaryote.
• Mitochondria came about first; plastids later.
Evidence in support of endosymbiosis:
Mitochondria and plastids:
• have membranes that contain transport systems
homologous to membrane of prokaryotes.
• replicate independently of cell by process resembling
binary fission.
• contain circular DNA not associated with histones.
• have own tRNA, ribosomes and other molecules
needed to make their own proteins.
• have prokaryotic ribosomes (70 S).
• mitochondria have rRNA sequence akin to modern
proteobactera; plastids have rRNA sequence akin to
modern cyanobacteria.
Eukaryotic cells as genetic chimeras
• Eukaryotic cells are chimeras of prokaryotic parts:
mitochondria from one type of bacteria, plastids
from another, DNA a combination of many types
of bacteria, possibly even Archaea.
The genome of eukaryotes is a product of genetic
annealing – horizontal gene transfer between
different bacteria and archaea.
The Golgi and the endomembrane system resulted
from infolding of the prokaryotic plasma
membrane.
 Multicellularity in Eukaryotes

• Earliest
multicellular
eukaryotes
evolved 1.5 bya.
• First came
colonies –
collections of
autonomously
replicating cells.
The first animals were plentiful in the Cambrian
period, a time known as the “Cambrian explosion”.
 Colonizing Land
• Plants evolved from green algae.
• Colonization of land could not have have
happened before ozone, Earth’s UV shield.
 Adaptations of Plants for Land
• Waterproof wax coating that prevents desiccation.
• Plant roots associated with mycorrhizal fungi that aid in
absorption (symbiotic relationship).
• Spores with tough walls to prevent drying out and
protect from UV.
• Stomata, or holes, in the bottom of leaves to allow gas
exchange.
• Vascular systems to transport water from the ground up.
• Tough, lignified cell walls for structural support on land.
Tetrapods – terrestrial vertebrates.
 Continental Drift

• Tectonic plates drift over earth’s surface.

Pangaea – all landmasses collected together as
one continent.

• As continents drifted apart, separate

evolutionary events happened on each
one.
Example: Eutherian mammals did not
evolve in Australia; only marsupials.
 Learning Objectives
LO 1.27 The student is able to describe a scientific hypothesis
about the origin of life on Earth. [See SP 1.2]
LO 1.28 The student is able to evaluate scientific questions
based on hypotheses about the origin of life on Earth. [See
SP 3.3]
LO 1.29 The student is able to describe the reasons for
revisions of scientific hypotheses of the origin of life on
Earth. [See SP 6.3]
LO 1.30 The student is able to evaluate scientific hypotheses
about the origin of life on Earth. [See SP 6.5]
LO 1.31 The student is able to evaluate the accuracy and
legitimacy of data to answer scientific questions about the
origin of life on Earth. [See SP 4.4]