In 1963 Bahadur photochemically synthesized a type of particles which he named "Jeewanu".In a sterilised aqueous mixture containing organic carbon, inorganic nitrogen and minerals commonly found in a cell, on irradiation with sunlight, small spherical particles are formed which have definite boundary wall and internal structure. Micrographs show the general view of the particles. The internal structure of the particles can be clearly viewed under high magnification. Micrographs of the particles under phase contrast microscope reveal clearly the boundary wall and the internal structure of the particles and also that these particles multiply by budding. The small cell grows to the mature size and buds.
Bahadur emphasized that in water where organic materials and necessary inorganic substance were present sunlight synthesised amino acids,peptides,sugar and such other biochemicals and these organised in the form of microstructures and formed Jeewanu.These Jeewanu were capable of adaptability and have evolved into the present day cellular life. The work on Jeewanu was soon repeated by Briggs and confirmation of this work was read in the 4th International symposium on photobiology held at Oxford in 1964.
In 1969, the work on Jeewanu was further confirmed by Rudin and Muller and the confirmation appeared in current topics in Bioenergetics . Jeewanu formed in sterilised aqueous mixtures were separated from the environmental medium. On analysis the environmental medium shows the presence of a few free amino acids as glycine and alanine only and no peptides where as Jeewanu,which have only a few free amino acids, on hydrolysis, shows the presence of glycine, alanine,glutamic acid,phenyl alanine ,lysine,arginine,histidine and valine which were present in Jeewanu in peptide form, sugars as glucose, fructose, ribose and deoxyribose, purines as adenine and a number of organic acids. The material of Jeewanu show phosphatase and esterase like activity which is destroyed by boiling at 100o c for 5 minutes. These particles can be stained with gentian violet after fixing them with chromium trioxide and the central portion acquires this stain indicating the presence of nucleotides. Eosin stains the peripheral portion indicating the presence of cytoplasm like material on the periphery.
Considering the importance of phospho lipids in membrane formation and also because of the apparent boundary wall present, these microstructure were stained with Sudan black and it was observed to stain the boundary wall.These particles on separation from the mixture if extracted with chloroform, methanol 80:20 is in a Soxhlet yield a viscous yellow liquid. This contains an ethyl alcohol soluble compound which on chromatography gives the test for phospholipids.The particles on hydrolysis with perchloric acid or formic acid in sealed tubes gives the test for nucleic acid bases as adenine guanine,cytosine,thymine and uracil.
If these particles are kept in sodium hydroxide for 24 hours filtered and the filtrate acidified with dilute acetic acid, a while precipitate is obtained which on subsequent hydrolysis gives the test of deoxyribose nucleic acid.
The formation of self sustaining particles having most of the biochemicals present in today's cell, employing formaldehyde as a source of organic carbon is of considerable interest not only because formaldehyde is easily synthesised on irradiation of an aqueous solution of carbondioxide by ultra violet radiation but also because of the report by snyder.et.al, at that formal dehyde is widely distributed in numerous galaxies. It has been reported that the materials of particles on digestion with hydrochloric acid show strong optical activity.