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The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture

Biological RNA is a uniform polymer in three senses: it uses nucleotides of a single chirality; it uses only ribose sugars and four nucleobases rather than a mixture of other sugars and bases; and it uses only 3′-5′ bonds rather than a mixture of different bond types. We suppose that prebiotic chemi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tupper, Andrew S., Shi, Kevin, Higgs, Paul G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745554/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29088116
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life7040041
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author Tupper, Andrew S.
Shi, Kevin
Higgs, Paul G.
author_facet Tupper, Andrew S.
Shi, Kevin
Higgs, Paul G.
author_sort Tupper, Andrew S.
collection PubMed
description Biological RNA is a uniform polymer in three senses: it uses nucleotides of a single chirality; it uses only ribose sugars and four nucleobases rather than a mixture of other sugars and bases; and it uses only 3′-5′ bonds rather than a mixture of different bond types. We suppose that prebiotic chemistry would generate a diverse mixture of potential monomers, and that random polymerization would generate non-uniform strands of mixed chirality, monomer composition, and bond type. We ask what factors lead to the emergence of RNA from this mixture. We show that template-directed replication can lead to the emergence of all the uniform properties of RNA by the same mechanism. We study a computational model in which nucleotides react via polymerization, hydrolysis, and template-directed ligation. Uniform strands act as templates for ligation of shorter oligomers of the same type, whereas mixed strands do not act as templates. The three uniform properties emerge naturally when the ligation rate is high. If there is an exact symmetry, as with the chase of chirality, the uniform property arises via a symmetry-breaking phase transition. If there is no exact symmetry, as with monomer selection and backbone regioselectivity, the uniform property emerges gradually as the rate of template-directed ligation is increased.
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spelling pubmed-57455542018-01-02 The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture Tupper, Andrew S. Shi, Kevin Higgs, Paul G. Life (Basel) Article Biological RNA is a uniform polymer in three senses: it uses nucleotides of a single chirality; it uses only ribose sugars and four nucleobases rather than a mixture of other sugars and bases; and it uses only 3′-5′ bonds rather than a mixture of different bond types. We suppose that prebiotic chemistry would generate a diverse mixture of potential monomers, and that random polymerization would generate non-uniform strands of mixed chirality, monomer composition, and bond type. We ask what factors lead to the emergence of RNA from this mixture. We show that template-directed replication can lead to the emergence of all the uniform properties of RNA by the same mechanism. We study a computational model in which nucleotides react via polymerization, hydrolysis, and template-directed ligation. Uniform strands act as templates for ligation of shorter oligomers of the same type, whereas mixed strands do not act as templates. The three uniform properties emerge naturally when the ligation rate is high. If there is an exact symmetry, as with the chase of chirality, the uniform property arises via a symmetry-breaking phase transition. If there is no exact symmetry, as with monomer selection and backbone regioselectivity, the uniform property emerges gradually as the rate of template-directed ligation is increased. MDPI 2017-10-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5745554/ /pubmed/29088116 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life7040041 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tupper, Andrew S.
Shi, Kevin
Higgs, Paul G.
The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture
title The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture
title_full The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture
title_fullStr The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture
title_short The Role of Templating in the Emergence of RNA from the Prebiotic Chemical Mixture
title_sort role of templating in the emergence of rna from the prebiotic chemical mixture
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745554/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29088116
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life7040041
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