The origin of cellular life

This essay presents a scenario of the origin of life that is based on analy sis of biological architecture and mechanical design at the microstructural level. My thesis is that the same architectural and energetic constraints that shape cells today also guided the evolution of the first cells and tha t the molecular scaffolds that support solid-phase biochemistry in modern c ells represent living microfossils of past life forms. This concept emerged from the discovery that cells mechanically stabilize themselves using tens egrity architecture and that these same building rules guide hierarchical s elf-assembly at all size scales (Sci Amer 278:48-57;1998), When combined wi th other fundamental design principles (e.g., energy minimization, topologi cal constraints, structural hierarchies, autocatalytic sets, solid-state bi ochemistry), tensegrity provides a physical basis to explain how atomic and molecular elements progressively self-assembled to create hierarchical str uctures with increasingly complex functions, including living cells that ca n self-reproduce. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.