The origin of life might seem like the ultimate cold case: no one was there
to observe it and much of the relevant evidence has been lost in the
intervening 3.5 billion years or so. Nonetheless, many separate lines of
evidence do shed light on this event, and as biologists continue to investigate
these data, they are slowly piecing together a picture of how life originated.
Major lines of evidence include DNA, biochemistry, and experiments.
Origins and DNA evidence
Biologists use the DNA sequences of modern organisms to reconstruct the tree of life and to figure out the likely characteristics of the most recent common ancestor of all living things — the "trunk" of the tree of life. In fact, according to some hypotheses, this "most recent common ancestor" may actually be a set of organisms that lived at the same time and were able to swap genes easily. In either case, reconstructing the early branches on the tree of life tells us that this ancestor (or set of ancestors) probably used DNA as its genetic material and performed complex chemical reactions. But what came before it? We know that this last common ancestor must have had ancestors of its own - a long line of forebears forming the root of the tree of life - but to learn about them, we must turn to other lines of evidence.
Biologists use the DNA sequences of modern organisms to reconstruct the tree of life and to figure out the likely characteristics of the most recent common ancestor of all living things — the "trunk" of the tree of life. In fact, according to some hypotheses, this "most recent common ancestor" may actually be a set of organisms that lived at the same time and were able to swap genes easily. In either case, reconstructing the early branches on the tree of life tells us that this ancestor (or set of ancestors) probably used DNA as its genetic material and performed complex chemical reactions. But what came before it? We know that this last common ancestor must have had ancestors of its own - a long line of forebears forming the root of the tree of life - but to learn about them, we must turn to other lines of evidence.
Origins and biochemical evidence
By studying the basic biochemistry shared by many organisms, we can begin to piece together how biochemical systems evolved near the root of the tree of life. However, up until the early 1980s, biologists were stumped by a "chicken and egg" problem: in all modern organisms, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) are necessary to build proteins, and proteins are necessary to build nucleic acids - so which came first, the nucleic acid or the protein? This problem was solved when a new property of RNA was discovered: some kinds of RNA can catalyze chemical reactions — and that means that RNA can both store genetic information and cause the chemical reactions necessary to copy itself. This breakthrough tentatively solved the chicken and egg problem: nucleic acids (and specifically, RNA) came first — and later on, life switched to DNA-based inheritance.
The discoveries of catalytic RNA and of molecular fossils closely related to nucleic acids suggest that nucleic acids (and specifically, RNA) were crucial to Earth's first life. These observations support the RNA world hypothesis, that early life used RNA for basic cellular processes (instead of the mix of proteins, RNA, and DNA used by modern organisms).
Origins and experimental evidence
Experiments can help scientists figure out how the molecules involved in the RNA world arose. These experiments serve as "proofs of concept" for hypotheses about steps in the origin of life — in other words, if a particular chemical reaction happens in a modern lab under conditions similar to those on early Earth, the same reaction could have happened on early Earth and could have played a role in the origin of life. The 1953 Miller-Urey experiment, for example, simulated early Earth's atmosphere with nothing more than water, hydrogen, ammonia, and methane and an electrical charge standing in for lightning, and produced complex organic compounds like amino acids. Now, scientists have learned more about the environmental and atmospheric conditions on early Earth and no longer think that the conditions used by Miller and Urey were quite right. However, since Miller and Urey, many scientists have performed experiments using more accurate environmental conditions and exploring alternate scenarios for these reactions. These experiments yielded similar results - complex molecules could have formed in the conditions on early Earth.
Experiments can help scientists figure out how the molecules involved in the RNA world arose. These experiments serve as "proofs of concept" for hypotheses about steps in the origin of life — in other words, if a particular chemical reaction happens in a modern lab under conditions similar to those on early Earth, the same reaction could have happened on early Earth and could have played a role in the origin of life. The 1953 Miller-Urey experiment, for example, simulated early Earth's atmosphere with nothing more than water, hydrogen, ammonia, and methane and an electrical charge standing in for lightning, and produced complex organic compounds like amino acids. Now, scientists have learned more about the environmental and atmospheric conditions on early Earth and no longer think that the conditions used by Miller and Urey were quite right. However, since Miller and Urey, many scientists have performed experiments using more accurate environmental conditions and exploring alternate scenarios for these reactions. These experiments yielded similar results - complex molecules could have formed in the conditions on early Earth.
