Chen Chen, Ruiqin Yi, Motoko Igisu, Chie Sakaguchi, Rehana Afrin, Christian Potiszil, Tak Kunihiro, Katsura Kobayashi, Eizo Nakamura, Yuichiro Ueno, André Antunes, Anna Wang, Kuhan Chandru, Jihua Hao, Tony Z. Jia
Abstract
α-Hydroxy acids are prebiotic monomers that undergo dehydration synthesis to form polyester gels, which assemble into membraneless microdroplets upon aqueous rehydration. These microdroplets are proposed as protocells that can segregate and compartmentalize primitive molecules/reactions. Different primitive aqueous environments with a variety of salts could have hosted chemistries that formed polyester microdroplets. These salts could be essential cofactors of compartmentalized prebiotic reactions or even directly affect protocell structure. However, fully understanding polyester-salt interactions remains elusive, partially due to technical challenges of quantitative measurements in condensed phases. Here, spectroscopic and biophysical methods are applied to analyze salt uptake by polyester microdroplets. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry is applied to measure the cation concentration within polyester microdroplets after addition of chloride salts. Combined with methods to determine the effects of salt uptake on droplet turbidity, size, surface potential and internal water distribution, it was observed that polyester microdroplets can selectively partition salt cations, leading to differential microdroplet coalescence due to ionic screening effects reducing electrostatic repulsion forces between microdroplets. Through applying existing techniques to novel analyses related to primitive compartment chemistry and biophysics, this study suggests that even minor differences in analyte uptake can lead to significant protocellular structural change.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 92. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 October 2023.
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#502,495
of 26,798,288 outputs
Outputs from SMALL METHODS
#15
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Outputs of similar age
#11,038
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Outputs of similar age from SMALL METHODS
#1
of 57 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,798,288 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 757 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 404,503 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 57 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
