Membrane enclosed intracellular compartments have been exclusively associated with the eukaryotes, represented by the highly compartmentalized last eukaryotic common ancestor. Recent evidence showing the presence of membranous compartments with specific functions in archaea and bacteria makes it conceivable that the last universal common ancestor and its hypothetical precursor, the protocell, may have exhibited compartmentalization. To the authors’ knowledge, there are no experimental studies yet that have tested this hypothesis. They report on an autonomous subcompartmentalization mechanism for protocells which results in the transformation of initial subcompartments to daughter protocells. The process is solely determined by the fundamental materials properties and interfacial events, and does not require biological machinery or chemical energy supply. In the light of the authors’ findings, it is proposed that similar events may have taken place under early Earth conditions, leading to the development of compartmentalized cells and potentially, primitive division.

中文翻译：

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模型原始单元的细分化和伪分区

膜封闭的细胞内区室已与真核生物专门相关，以高度区分开的最后一个真核生物祖先为代表。最近的证据表明在古细菌和细菌中存在具有特定功能的膜区室，这使得人们可以想象到，最后的通用祖先及其假设的前体原始细胞可能已表现出区室化。据作者所知，尚无实验研究证实了这一假设。他们报告了一种针对原始细胞的自治子区室化机制，该机制导致了初始子区室向子代原始细胞的转化。该过程完全由基本材料属性和界面事件决定，并且不需要生物机械或化学能源供应。根据作者的发现，建议在地球早期条件下可能发生类似的事件，从而导致分隔细胞的发展和潜在的原始分裂。