ABSTRACT
This chapter is a review of Oparin’s work on his coacervate model for primordial protocells and work by others on updating, modernizing, and expanding his model. Although Oparin proposed his coacervate model almost 100 years ago, his model is still highly relevant to the study of the origins of life on Earth. Oparin viewed coacervates as the original protocells, since they provided compartmentalization, the site for proto-metabolism, and were capable of self-replication. The historical value of Oparin’s work is covered elsewhere in this handbook. The focus of this chapter is on his coacervates and the associated experiments. Constituents of Oparin’s coacervates are complex biomolecules, which are not prebiotically feasible, based on the modern knowledge of prebiotic chemistry. However, a prebiotically feasible coacervate, AOT, has been recently proposed. Further, the Passerini multicomponent reaction, which is prebiotically feasible, was run inside the coacervate, thus confirming the ability of coacervate to act as a chemical reactor. Current research on coacervates as models for protocells is vigorous. Many sophisticated experiments have confirmed the potential of coacervates to serve as protocells in the manner Oparin has proposed. However, most constituents of the modern coacervate protocells models are not prebiotically feasible.
