- Enhanced nonenzymatic RNA copying with 2-aminoimidazole activated nucleotides
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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 progress, the nonenzymatic copying of templates containing mixed sequences remains slow and inefficient. Here we demonstrate that activating nucleotides with 2-aminoimidazole results in superior reaction kinetics and improved yields of primer extension reaction products. This new leaving group significantly accelerates monomer addition as well as trimer-assisted RNA primer extension, allowing efficient copying of a variety of short RNA templates with mixed sequences.
- Li, Li,Prywes, Noam,Tam, Chun Pong,Oflaherty, Derek K.,Lelyveld, Victor S.,Izgu, Enver Cagri,Pal, Ayan,Szostak, Jack W.
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- Phosphorylation, oligomerization and self-assembly in water under potential prebiotic conditions
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Prebiotic phosphorylation of (pre)biological substrates under aqueous conditions is a critical step in the origins of life. Previous investigations have had limited success and/or require unique environments that are incompatible with subsequent generation of the corresponding oligomers or higher-order structures. Here, we demonstrate that diamidophosphate (DAP) - a plausible prebiotic agent produced from trimetaphosphate - efficiently (amido)phosphorylates a wide variety of (pre)biological building blocks (nucleosides/tides, amino acids and lipid precursors) under aqueous (solution/paste) conditions, without the need for a condensing agent. Significantly, higher-order structures (oligonucleotides, peptides and liposomes) are formed under the same phosphorylation reaction conditions. This plausible prebiotic phosphorylation process under similar reaction conditions could enable the systems chemistry of the three classes of (pre)biologically relevant molecules and their oligomers, in a single-pot aqueous environment.
- Gibard, Clémentine,Bhowmik, Subhendu,Karki, Megha,Kim, Eun-Kyong,Krishnamurthy, Ramanarayanan
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p. 212 - 217
(2018/02/06)
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