This is thought to have eventually led to the crucial moment, when self-replicating molecules arose. Self-replication of molecular systems is often viewed in the context of information content. Many scientists believe that life began with the spontaneous emergence of biopolymers, such as proteins or RNA, where information is stored in the sequence of chemical units. Yet, the emergence of proteins or self-replicating RNA molecules remained enigmatic. They have developed the new model that suggests a new route for the origin of life, based on lipid molecules.
Lipids are oily substances, known as chief ingredients of the cell's membranes.
They get readily synthesized under simulated prebiological conditions, and because of their bipartite nature, have the tendency to spontaneously form supramolecular structures made of thousands of molecular units. The model proposed by Lancet and colleagues offers a solution. They surmise that early on, lipid-like compounds existed in a very large diversity of shapes and forms. They show mathematically that under such conditions, lipid assemblies could contain almost as much information as an RNA strand or a protein chain. They further demonstrate how a droplet-like lipid assembly, when growing and splitting, could manifest a form of inheritance.