The origin of life on Earth was a chemical affair. So how did primitive biochemical systems originate from geochemical and cosmochemical processes on the young planet? Contemporary research into the origins of life subscribes to the Darwinian principle of material causes operating in an evolutionary context, as advocated by A. I. Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane in the 1920s. In its simplest form (e.g., a bacterial cell) extant biological complexity relies on the functional integration of metabolic networks and replicative genomes inside a lipid boundary. Different research programmes have explored the prebiotic plausibility of each of these autocatalytic subsystems and combinations thereof: self-maintained networks of small molecules, template chemistry, and self-reproductive vesicles. This tutorial review focuses on the debates surrounding the origin of metabolism and offers a brief overview of current studies on the evolution of metabolic networks. I suggest that a leitmotif in the origin and evolution of metabolism is the role played by catalysers' substrate ambiguity and multifunctionality.
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机译：地球上的生命起源是化学问题。那么原始的生化系统是如何起源于年轻星球上的地球化学和宇宙化学过程的呢？当代的生命起源研究遵循物质进化的达尔文原理，正如A. I. Oparin和J. B. S. Haldane在1920年代所倡导的那样。以其最简单的形式（例如细菌细胞），现有的生物复杂性取决于脂质边界内代谢网络和复制基因组的功能整合。不同的研究计划探索了这些自动催化子系统及其组合的益生元似然性：小分子的自我维持网络，模板化学和自我繁殖的囊泡。本教程的重点是围绕代谢起源的辩论，并简要概述了有关代谢网络进化的最新研究。我认为，代谢的起源和进化中的主旋律是催化剂底物歧义性和多功能性所起的作用。
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