Can we recreate the orgins of life?

Question

If we have all these theories about how life started than have scientists recreated the origins of life in a lab? i've heard that amino acids were formed together and all sorts of stuff happened to create life from inanimate chemicals etc. but if thats true than we should be able to duplicate that. have we? if not than why?

Answer 1

With accurate theories we should be able to recreate the start of life. One huge reason why not, is because it took a really long time (thousands if not millions of years). Things like mutations for genetic variation cannot be controlled and the process cannot be sped up.

Answer 2

There was likely an ocean of chemicals being subjected to lightning, meteors, UV and all sorts of exotic processes. You can not do anything that could come close to the volume of the ocean. It may have taken millions of years and entire oceans before the first molecules were able to find a formula that allowed them to reproduce and eventually begin life.

Answer 3

Two scientists named Miller and Urey did an experiment. They set up conditions thought to be like that of the "primordial soup" and exposed it to sparks to simulate lightning. They found that, in their flasks, many biological compounds had formed, including amino acids, sugars, lipids and nucleic acids. Also, they found that the lipids formed bilayered vesicles, like our cell membranes.

Answer 4

Molecular cloning refers to the procedure of isolating a defined DNA sequence and obtaining multiple copies of it in vivo. Cloning is frequently employed to amplify DNA fragments containing genes, but it can be used to amplify any DNA sequence such as promoters, non-coding sequences and randomly fragmented DNA. It is utilised in a wide array of biological experiments and practical applications such as large scale protein production. Occasionally, the term cloning is misleadingly used to refer to the identification of the chromosomal location of a gene associated with a particular phenotype of interest, such as in positional cloning. In practice, localization of the gene to a chromosome or genomic region does not necessarily enable one to isolate or amplify the relevant genomic sequence.

In essence, in order to amplify any DNA sequence in a living organism that sequence must be linked to an origin of replication, a sequence element capable of directing the propagation of itself and any linked sequence. In practice, however, a number of other features are desired and a variety of specialised cloning vectors exist that allow protein expression, tagging, single stranded RNA and DNA production and a host of other manipulations.

Cloning of any DNA fragment essentially involves four steps: fragmentation, ligation, transfection, and screening/selection. Although these steps are invariable among cloning procedures a number of alternative routes can be selected, these are summarised as a ‘cloning strategy’.

Initially, the DNA of interest needs to be isolated to provide a relevant DNA segment of suitable size. Subsequently, a ligation procedure is employed whereby the amplified fragment is inserted into a vector. The vector (which is frequently circular) is linearised by means of restriction enzymes, and incubated with the fragment of interest under appropriate conditions with an enzyme called DNA ligase. Following ligation the vector with the insert of interest is transfected into cells. A number of alternative techniques are available, such as chemical sensitivation of cells, electroporation and biolistics. Finally, the transfected cells are cultured. As the aforementioned procedures are of particularly low efficiency, there is a need to identify the cells that have been successfully transfected with the vector construct containing the desired insertion sequence in the required orientation. Modern cloning vectors include selectable antibiotic resistance markers, which allow only cells in which the vector has been transfected, to grow. Additionally, the cloning vectors may contain colour selection markers which provide blue/white screening (α-factor complementation) on X-gal medium. Nevertheless, these selection steps do not absolutely guarantee that the DNA insert is present in the cells obtained. Further investigation of the resulting colonies is required to confirm that cloning was successful. This may be accomplished by means of PCR, restriction fragment analysis and/or DNA sequencing.