Nucleotide synthetase ribozymes may have emerged first in the RNA world
- 1College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China
- 2State Key Laboratory of Software Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China
- 3College of Computer Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China
- 4College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China
Abstract
Though the “RNA world” hypothesis has gained a central role in ideas concerning the origin of life, the scenario concerning its emergence remains uncertain. It has been speculated that the first scene may have been the emergence of a template-dependent RNA synthetase ribozyme, which catalyzed its own replication: thus, “RNA replicase.” However, the speculation remains uncertain, primarily because of the large sequence length requirement of such a replicase and the lack of a convincing mechanism to ensure its self-favoring features. Instead, we propose a nucleotide synthetase ribozyme as an alternative candidate, especially considering recent experimental evidence suggesting the possibility of effective nonenzymatic template-directed synthesis of RNA. A computer simulation was conducted to support our proposal. The conditions for the emergence of the nucleotide synthetase ribozyme are discussed, based on dynamic analysis on a computer. We suggest the template-dependent RNA synthetase ribozyme emerged later, perhaps after the emergence of protocells.
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Footnotes
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Reprint requests to: Wentao Ma, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, People's Republic of China; e-mail: mwt{at}whu.edu.cn; fax: 86-27-87161939.
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Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/doi/10.1261/rna.658507.
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- Received May 25, 2007.
- Accepted August 14, 2007.
- Copyright © 2007 RNA Society