ABSTRACT
Introduction Our understanding of biological processes is constrained within a circular relationship
resembling the “hen-egg dilemma” which might be called the “DNA-cell dilemma”: if all the information necessary to make a cell (or a tyrannosaurus, as the fiction goes) is stored in DNA sequences, why does a cell only arise from a preexisting cell? The uninterrupted cell continuity since LUCA suggests that cell heredity might require more than DNA. Aside from membranes which, like DNA, cannot form de novo, what does a cell transmit to its daughters that allows them to recapitulate the exact morphology of their mother, despite the profound remodeling that accompanies division?
