MODULE 4

Introduction to Life Science

 Learning Objectives
• explain the evolving concept of life based on emerging pieces of
evidence

• describe classic experiments that model conditions which may have

enabled the first forms to evolve

• describe how unifying themes (e.g.,structure and function, evolution,

andecosystems) in the study of life show the connections among living
things and how they interact with each other and with their
environment
THE BEGINNING OF LIFE
•Earth’s species imply that all evolved from a
common ancestor that lived billions of years ago
•Astrobiology
• Study of life’s origin and distribution in the universe
•Earth’s extreme habitats
• Studied to determine range of conditions that can
support life
Big bang theory
• The universe began in a single instant 13 to 15 billion years ago
• All existing matter and energy suddenly appeared
• Exploded outward from a single point
• Simple elements such as hydrogen and helium formed within minutes
• Gravity drew gases together and they condensed to form stars
• Early stars scattered heavier elements, forming galaxies
• Asteroids near our sun collided, merged, and gathered more material by exerting
a gravitational pull
• Gradual buildup of materials formed Earth and other planets in our solar system
• Early Earth received a constant hail
of meteorites
• Provided components of land, seas,
and atmosphere
• Volcanic eruptions also contributed
• Earth started out with little or no
free oxygen
• All water was in the form of vapor
to start
• Earth then cooled, and liquid water
formed
• In 1925, chemists were able to synthesize organic
molecules
• Showed they could be made from nonliving
things
• Three main hypotheses for how organic
monomers first formed on Earth
• Lightning-fueled atmospheric reactions
• Reactions at hydrothermal vents
• Delivery from space
• Lightning-fueled atmospheric reactions
• Hypothesis tested in 1953 by Miller and Urey
• Figure 19.3 on next slide shows test apparatus
• A variety of organic molecules formed within
one week
• Amino acids were also formed
 electrodes
to
vacuum
pump

CH4 spark
discharge
NH3
gases
H2O
H2 water out

condenser
water in
water droplets

water containing
boiling water organic compounds
liquid water in trap

© 2016 Cengage Learning

• Reactions at hydrothermal
vents
• Occurred on the ocean floor
• Mineral-rich water heated by
geothermal energy streams
• Delivery from space
• Many meteorites that fell on the
early Earth carried organic
monomers that had formed in space
• Modern-day meteorites that fall to
earth sometimes contain amino
acids, sugars, and nucleotide bases
• Similar compounds discovered in
gas clouds surrounding nearby stars
 inorganic molecules

...self-assemble on Earth and in space

organic monomers

...self-assemble in aquatic environments on Earth

organic polymers
...interact in early metabolism

...self-assemble as vesicles

...become the first genome

protocells in an RNA world

...are subject to selection that favors a DNA

genome

DNA-based cells
• Tidal flat hypothesis • Iron-sulfur world hypothesis
• Nonbiological process concentrated organic • Proposed by Wachtershauser
subunits • Life originated at deep-sea
• Occurred on clay-rich tidal flats hydrothermal vents
• Clay has a slight negative charge • Porous rocks near these vents
• Positively charged molecules would stick to clay rich in iron sulfides
• Energy from the sun might have triggered • Iron sulfides easily donate
polymerization electrons to inorganic gases
• Simulated tidal flat conditions show short chains dissolved in seawater
of amino acids can form • Gases reacted and formed
molecules
• Molecules accumulated and
became concentrated
• Became catalytic
• All modern cells have a genome of DNA
• Pass copies to descendant cells
• Cells use DNA instructions to make proteins
• Protein synthesis is dependent on DNA, which is built by proteins
• RNA world hypothesis
• RNA may have been first molecule to store genetic information
• RNA can also function like an enzyme in protein synthesis
• Something needed to enclose the molecules of the first synthetic
reactions
• Tiny rock chambers may have acted as an initial boundary
• Plasma membrane serves this function today
• Protocell
• Membrane-enclosed collection of interacting molecules that can take up material
and replicate
A Illustration of a laboratory-produced B Laboratory-formed protocell consisting C Field-testing a hypothesis about protocell formation.
protocell with a bilayer membrane of fatty of RNA-coated clay (red) surrounded by fatty David Deamer pours a mix of small organic molecules and
acids and strands of RNA inside. acids and alcohols. phosphates into a hot acidic pool in Russia.

(A) © Janet Iwasa; (B) From Hanczyc, Fujikawa, and Szostak, Experimental Models of Primitive
Cellular Compartments: Encapsulation, Growth, and Division; www.sciencemag.org, Science
24 October 2003; 302;529, Figure 2, Page 619. Reprinted with permission of the authors and
AAAS; (C) Photo by Tony Hoffman, courtesy of David Deamer.
• Theory from modern genome analysis
• All living species descended from the same cell
• This cell may have lived 4 billion years ago
• Cell was likely prokaryotic (having no nucleus)
• Cell must have been anaerobic (capable of living without oxygen)
• Because oxygen was scarce on early Earth
• Challenges in looking for evidence of early life
• Few ancient rocks that could hold early fossils still exist
• Cells have no hard parts to fossilize
• Structures formed by nonbiological mechanisms sometimes resemble fossils
• Oldest cell microfossils
• Filaments from 3.5 billion year old rocks in Western Australia
 10 µm

A This 3.5-billion-year-old flament may be a chain of fossil bacteria from an B These 3.4-billion-year-old spheres may be fossil bacteria that lived
ancient stromatolite. The underlying photo shows modern stromatolites in among sand grains of an ancient shore.
Australia’s Shark Bay. Each stromatolite consists of living photosynthetic
bacteria atop the remains of countless earlier generations of cells along
with the sediment that they trapped.

(A) background, Michael Aw/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; inset, Courtesy of John Fuerst, University of Queensland. Originally
published in Archives of Microbiology vol 175, p 413–29 (Lindsay MR, Webb RI, Strous M, Jetten MS, Butler MK, Forde RJ, Fuerst JA. Cell
compartmentalisation in planctomycetes: Novel types of structural organization for the bacterial cell. Arch. Microbiol. 2001 Jun, 175(6): 413–
29); (B) background, tratong/Shutterstock.com; inset, Courtesy of David Wacey.
• Stromatolite
• Mounded, layered
structure that forms in
shallow sunlit water
• Mat of photosynthetic
bacteria traps minerals
and sediment
• Increases in size over
time as new layers cover
the old
• Oxygen began to accumulate in
Earth’s air and seas about 2.5
billion years ago
• Created a new, global selection
pressure
• Oxygen toxic to many species
that had evolved without it
• Increase in atmospheric oxygen
led to formation of the ozone
layer
• Biomarker
• Substance that occurs only in cells of a
specific type
• Certain steroids are biomarkers for
eukaryotes
• Steroids found in ancient rocks suggest
eukaryotes may have arisen 2.7 billion
years ago
• Oldest fossil eukaryotes: 1.8 billion years
old
• DNA of prokaryotes
• Unenclosed in cell’s cytoplasm
• DNA of eukaryotic cell
• Always in the nucleus and
associated with an
endomembrane system
• Some bacteria have internal
membranes
• Protects genome from physical or
biological threats
• Mitochondria and chloroplasts
• Resemble bacteria in size and shape
• Have own DNA
• Singular, circular chromosome
• Endosymbiont hypothesis
• Mitochondria and chloroplasts
evolved from bacteria
• Assumes cells can enter and live
inside other cells
 ancestral
DNA
prokaryote

aerobic bacteria
are engulfed or
infect the cell
infoldings
of the plasma
membrane

infoldings evolve
aerobic bacteria
into the nuclear
envelope and evolve into mitochondria
endomembrane
system

photosynthetic
bacteria

engulfed
photosynthetic
bacteria evolve
into chloroplasts

Eukaryotic cells: Eukaryotic cells: plants,

animals, fungi, some protists some protists
From RUSSELL/WOLFE/HERTZ/STARR, Biology, 2E, ©
2011 Cengage Learning Inc. Reproduced by permission.
www.cengage.com/permissions.
• Closest relatives of
mitochondria
• Specific type of marine bacteria
• Bacteria that causes the disease
typhus
• Origin of chloroplasts
• Descended from ancient
cyanobacteria
• Components of the first protists
• Nucleus
• Endomembrane system
• Mitochondria
• Chloroplasts (in certain lineages)
• Milestone events
• Building blocks form
• Cells form
• Domains diverge
• Photosynthesis and aerobic respiration
evolve
• Endomembrane system and nucleus
evolve
• Origin of mitochondria
• Origin of chloroplasts
• Origin of fungi, animals, and plants
• Modern life
 Baltazar, R.A et al. (2016). Conceptual Science and Beyond; Earth and
Life Science: A work text for Senior High School, Brilliant Creations
Publishing, Inc., Quezon City

 Starr et al. (2016).Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life,14th edition,

Cengage Learning, Manila City.

 Retrieved from https://www.deped.gov.ph/wp-

content/uploads/2019/01/SHS-Core_Earth-and-Life-Science-CG_with-
tagged-sci-equipment.pdf

 Reece, Jane. B. et. al. Campbell Biology (9th ed.). Boston: Pearson,
2011.