Abstract
Electrical membrane potentials, oscillations, and action potentials are observed in proteinoid microspheres impaled with (3 M KCl) microelectrodes. Although effects are of greater magnitude when the vesicles contain glycerol and natural or synthetic lecithin, the results in the purely synthetic thermal protein structures are substantial, attaining 20 mV amplitude in some cases. The results add the property of electrical potential to the other known properties of proteinoid microspheres, in their role as models for protocells.
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On leave from the Medical Research Centre, Warsaw, Poland
Visiting from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN 47803
This research was aided by Grant NGR 10-007-008 of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and by D. Rose. Contribution No. 354 of the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Evolution.
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Przybylski, A.T., Stratten, W.P., Syren, R.M. et al. Membrane, action, and oscillatory potentials in simulated protocells. Naturwissenschaften 69, 561–563 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00396351
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00396351