2011).

Incorporation of oxidized PAH derivatives did not affect CVC values, the only exception being 1-hydroxypyrene which produced a statistically significant CVC reduction. The formation of fluffy aggregates in 1-hydroxypyrene samples around the CVC requires further investigation. One possibility is that upon dilution the fatty acid bilayers reach a critical MDV3100 nmr 1-hydroxypyrene concentration at which point vesicles aggregate. The high permeability of fatty acid vesicles has certain advantages in a prebiotic setting because small molecules would be able to cross a membrane barrier without requiring the highly evolved protein transport system used by life today. However, high permeability also means that fatty acid vesicles are unable to encapsulate large molecules buy ZD1839 such as dyes and tRNA (Maurer et al. 2009). A balance is needed in which smaller nutrient molecules can be transported into a primitive cell while larger molecules that perform essential functions such as catalysis can be maintained in the vesicle lumen. Our measurements

of the permeability of mixed membranes for small solutes produced the following significant results. Incorporation of 1:10 1-hydroxypyrene/DA lowered the initial rate of permeation of KCl 4.2 fold while 1:10 9-anthracene carboxylic acid/DA lowered the permeation of KCl 2.5 fold. The decrease in membrane permeability to KCl by incorporation of 1-hydroxypyrene and 9-anthracene carboxylic acid is in the same order of magnitude in which cholesterol decreases K+ and Na+ leakage in modern phospholipid membranes, which is 3-fold (Haines 2001). The influence of hopanoids on the permeability of prokaryotic membranes is still relatively unexplored. The permeability coefficient of sucrose was lowered 4-fold by 1-hydroxypyrene incorporation, from 1.3 × 10−8 cm/s to 3.3 × 10−9 cm/s. Comparing this to longer chain amphiphiles, the permeability

coefficients of oleate vesicles to monosaccharides like ribose are in the ~10−8 range (Mansy et al. 2008) while the permeability coefficient of selleck chemical phosphatidylcholine membranes P-type ATPase to sucrose is 2.1 × 10−13 cm/s (Brunner et al. 1980). While 1-hydroxypyrene provides a significant lowering of the membrane permeability to KCl and sucrose, small molecules like glycerol can still pass these membranes very rapidly (data not shown). In summary, the permeability of decanoic acid membranes for small solutes is significantly reduced by 1-hydroxypyrene, although the permeability is larger compared to current day membranes composed of longer chain phospholipids. These data represent the first indication of a cholesterol-like stabilizing effect of oxidized PAH derivatives in a simulated prebiotic membrane. Acknowledgements J.G. and P.E. acknowledge the support of the NASA Astrobiology Institute NAI and A.K.