What experiments are there that demonstrate proteins interactions WITHOUT a higher lifeform?

Question

I must have asked the question wrong earlier. The idea is that proteins will interact to make more complex structures, like ribosomes and enzymes. This, of course, will lead to these structures interacting to bring about a bacteria or some simpler life form (probably a type of archaebacteria).

Answer 1

That would be protobionts.  A system of competition exists without proteins.  

Answer 2

"The idea"; whose idea?  Current thinking is that ribozymes are more ancient than proteins, and if you know what ribosomes are, you will know that they contain RNA and cannot be made from protein alone. So the model of the origin of life that you are implicitly criticising is one that no one really believes anyway.

Life is certainly complex, and the origin of life is a complex and very incompletely solved problem, but the idea you are putting forward sounds like a straw man designed for creationists to knock down.

Answer 3

A few ideas (assuming you're trying to research abiogenesis):

1.  If its intended to educate, maybe try a recreation of the Miller-Urey experiment?  

2.  There are probably thousands of different mixtures of catalysts and reagents that could spawn peptides.  Chances are you can even google search them, or use a university database.  If you're trying to design a new, original experiment, I can (try to) make a few suggestions:

    a. Use reagents that were abundant in early earth to improve the credibility of your experiment.  Using more acidic water with higher concentrations of CO2 is a sometimes overlooked detail.

    b.  Introduce new concepts.  Organic monomer synthesis through lightning, "methane, ammonia, and hydrogen" (wikipedia) is old news.    

    c.  Use current technologies to get a base of knowledge.  I don't mean go take a course. I mean observe the breakdown of some peptides, develop a mathematical model that solves for molecular geometry that would be most conducive to abiogenesis.  I've always believed in mathematics as a way to explain everything in the world.  I'm in the field of genetics, but both you and I have to deal with molecular structures, and the best place to learn even more than you were taught in class is a reference of molecular weights.  Using that, along with mathematics, I think its very possible to outline a list of "suspect" matter that could provide the geometry necessary for a successful experiment.

I hope I answered your question, or at least introduced some new ideas.  Good luck!

Answer 4

are you trying to suggest that protein on its own interacts to form a lifeform?? if so then that is absurd and you should really think about it. Please clarify further what your suggesting. As for protein interactions without a higher lifeform what again are you asking there? If proteins need a higher lifeform to interact.. in that case then no. antibody immunodiagnostics with antibody ( glycoprotein) will interact with its antigen (usually a protein) in vivo without the higher life force. Maybe I am interpreting this wrong but please make clearer the question you want answering.

Answer 5

well an amoeba is a lower lifeform i assume and that has proteins that create complex structures, you can see them if you looooook really close ;)

Answer 6

You have a yeast-2-hybrid assay.

The idea of a yeast-2-hybrid assay uses transcription in yeast. Yeast is a simple eukaryote, which forms a similar transcription initiation complex within the promoter region of its DNA. Similar to our cells.Well, you put on protein on one of the regions of DNA and the other protein further downstream and if they interact, they will complete the transcription initation complex and begin transcription.

You can have RNA polemerase, which is a clutster of subunits to make RNA.

You can bring about the idea of secondary enzymatic RNA which can act like a highly basic RNA polemerase. Which is believed to be the start of organisms and is one main theory for how DNA was made in the idea of evolution. We do not a correct theory of how DNA was made, but the idea of RNA enzymes can act like basic RNA polemerase is so far correct. When I mean correct: I mean that current experiments make sense.

I guess this answers your question. If I did not, then email another question with a better description.

good luck