A cell is fundamentally a container — a vessel that encapsulates life at the most basic level. Many biologists believe encapsulation of chemicals may have been necessary for evolution to gain traction.
But how does encapsulation occur? Is it achieved easily — or is it elusive? SFI Professor Chris Kempes and colleagues investigate crucial aspects of this process in a recent paper in a special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B focused on the origins of life.
To explore these questions, the authors used their own existing mathematical model of a bacterial cell to examine how changing the activity of its components affects encapsulation. For example, when they slowed the speed at which ribosomes produced proteins, the cell needed more ribosomes to meet all of its protein demands. In such a scenario, these macromolecules quickly filled the cell, leaving little room for other essential components. Such a “ribosome catastrophe” would render the cell non-existent. Speeding up ribosomal activity, on the other hand, allowed the cells to grow larger and avoid the disastrous end.
Drawing on these results, the authors developed a new encapsulation model applicable to life beyond Earth or synthetic life grown in labs. The authors tested out the theoretical framework on two types of living systems: autocatalytic and genetic. Autocatalytic life consists of a network of molecules that replicate themselves. A genetic system is more complex, comprising molecules that store information coupled to those that chemically run the system.
The new model points to some principles that govern encapsulation universally. For example, if the chemical processes within a living system are slow, it can’t fit that chemistry within a container. Faster chemistry, on the other hand, allows for larger, more complex living systems that offset the loss of molecules from environmental decay and dilution.
Read the paper “How hard is it to encapsulate life? The general constraints on encapsulation,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (October 2, 2025). DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2024.0297