Protocells and RNA self-replication

GF Joyce, JW Szostak - Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives …, 2018‏ - cshperspectives.cshlp.org
The general notion of an “RNA world” is that, in the early development of life on the Earth,
genetic continuity was assured by the replication of RNA, and RNA molecules were the chief …

Growth, replication and division enable evolution of coacervate protocells

AD Slootbeek, MHI van Haren, IBA Smokers… - Chemical …, 2022‏ - pubs.rsc.org
Living and proliferating cells undergo repeated cycles of growth, replication and division, all
orchestrated by complex molecular networks. How a minimal cell cycle emerged and helped …

Template-based copying in chemically fuelled dynamic combinatorial libraries

CME Kriebisch, L Burger, O Zozulia, M Stasi… - Nature Chemistry, 2024‏ - nature.com
One of science's greatest challenges is determining how life can spontaneously emerge
from a mixture of molecules. A complicating factor is that life and its molecules are inherently …

RNA-catalyzed evolution of catalytic RNA

N Papastavrou, DP Horning, GF Joyce - Proceedings of the National …, 2024‏ - pnas.org
An RNA polymerase ribozyme that was obtained by directed evolution can propagate a
functional RNA through repeated rounds of replication and selection, thereby enabling …

Autocatalysis: kinetics, mechanisms and design

AI Hanopolskyi, VA Smaliak, AI Novichkov… - …, 2021‏ - Wiley Online Library
The importance of autocatalysis spans from practical applications such as in chemically
amplified photoresists, to autocatalysis playing a fundamental role in evolution as well as a …

Physical principles and extant biology reveal roles for RNA-containing membraneless compartments in origins of life chemistry

RR Poudyal, F Pir Cakmak, CD Keating… - Biochemistry, 2018‏ - ACS Publications
This Perspective focuses on RNA in biological and nonbiological compartments resulting
from liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS), with an emphasis on origins of life. In extant …

Enhanced nonenzymatic RNA copying with 2-aminoimidazole activated nucleotides

L Li, N Prywes, CP Tam, DK O'flaherty… - Journal of the …, 2017‏ - ACS Publications
Achieving efficient nonenzymatic replication of RNA is an important step toward the
synthesis of self-replicating protocells that may mimic early forms of life. Despite recent …

The narrow road to the deep past: in search of the chemistry of the origin of life

JW Szostak - Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2017‏ - Wiley Online Library
The sequence of events that gave rise to the first life on our planet took place in the Earth's
deep past, seemingly forever beyond our reach. Perhaps for that very reason the idea of …

Ribozyme-catalysed RNA synthesis using triplet building blocks

J Attwater, A Raguram, AS Morgunov, E Gianni… - Elife, 2018‏ - elifesciences.org
RNA-catalyzed RNA replication is widely believed to have supported a primordial biology.
However, RNA catalysis is dependent upon RNA folding, and this yields structures that can …

The role of sugar-backbone heterogeneity and chimeras in the simultaneous emergence of RNA and DNA

S Bhowmik, R Krishnamurthy - Nature chemistry, 2019‏ - nature.com
Hypotheses of the origins of RNA and DNA are generally centred on the prebiotic synthesis
of a pristine system (pre-RNA or RNA), which gives rise to its descendent. However, a lack of …