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| Sidney. W. Fox |
In trying to disclose the intermediate stages of abiogenesis
mentioned by J. D. Bernal; an American biochemist named Sidney. W.
Fox in 1958, studied the spontaneous formation of peptide structures
(small chains of amino acids) under the early Earth's prebiotic
conditions. In his experiment, he allowed amino acids to dry out as
if puddled in a warm, dry spot in prebiotic conditions. As they
dried, he found that amino acids could by itself form small peptides.
These amino acids and small peptides could formed long cross-linked,
thread like sub-microscopic closed spherical membranes of polypeptide
molecules which known as proteinoid microspheres. But these
proteinoid microspheres were not cells as they formed clumps and
chains reminiscent of cyanobacteria, because they contained no
functional nucleic acid for the encoding of a genetic information.
This led to the proposal of RNA World Hypothesis in 1962.
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