Macromolecular self-replication

What does your intuition say did macromolecular self-replication systems come first in the origin of life or should they be seen as the product of a mature cellular or proto-cellular metabolism ... 

In addition, the authors suggest that all such systems must have a semi-permeable active boundary (membrane), an energy transduction apparatus and (at least) two types of functionally interdependent macromolecular components (catalysts and records). Thus, the phenomenon of life requires not only individual self-replication and self-sustaining systems, but it also requires of such individual systems the ability to develop a characteristic, evolutionary dynamic and a historical collectivist organisation. 

There are still several uncertainties, even from the conceptual point of view, about the notion of self-replication. However the advantages of one such autocatalytic scheme for producing a significant concentration of active macromolecular species are commonly accepted. It is easy, at least on paper, to see how a self-replicative mechanism can give rise to the next important steps for the origin of life suppose in fact that during the self-replication cycles the compound undergoes some... 

And the grand concept appeared to be portentous. Quite soon Schramm et al. [2b] aroused enthusiasm with the nonenzymatic synthesis of nucleosides and nucleic acids, and the origin of self-replicating systems the polycondensation of uridylic acid onto the orientating (A) -matrix - and the first attempt at an artificial matrix reaction [2]. Was this the breakthrough that would lead chemistry not only into the wonderland of biology, but also rapidly to ordered and instructed macromolecular organizations in its own dominion [2c-f] ... 

R. D. MacElroy, Y. Coekelenbergh, and R. Rein (1977), Macromolecular simulations as an approach to the study of the origins of self-replicating systems. Biosystems 9, 111-119. 

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