Chemical self-organisation, experiments

Hazen and Deamer looked at the chemical and physical properties of the end products of hypothetical prebiotic reactions carried out under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature, for example in CCh-rich regions of hydrothermal vents. The results of laboratory experiments indicate that prebiotic syntheses leading to a variety of products could have occurred in hydrothermal systems some of these have amphiphilic properties, and would have been capable of self-organisation processes. 

The second phase, namely the self-organising mechanism of the molecular self-replication has been investigated by Eigen (1971) and his coworkers (Eigen Schuster, 1979) unifying the detailed results of biochemical experiments with mathematical models of chemical kinetics. Theoretical studies have initially been motivated by the test-tube experiments on RNA evolution (for an early review see Spiegelman (1971)). The molecular mechanism of RNA replication is still always being studied (Biebricher et aiy 1983). 

Micelles are the simplest organised form of the self-assembly produced by amphiphilic molecules due to the so-called hydrophobic effect , firstly recognized by Tanford.NMR parameters experience dramatic effects as a result of the strong intermolecular interactions among the amphiphiles. In the case of isotropic liquid systems, NMR experiments can be easily performed and modelled, since many advances have been produced in the last two decades.Hence, information on critical micelle concentration (c.m.c.), molecular conformations and interactions, counterion binding, hydration can be obtained from chemical shifts, relaxation, and self-diffusion NMR measurements, also in mixed systems. 

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