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UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is a relevant framework from within which to address formidable difficulties encountered in explaining the origin of life; from molecular synthesis and complexation, enzyme-less proliferation, to evolution (including the acquisition of homochirality and information). F...

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Autores principales: Michaelian, Karo, Padilla, Norberto Santillán
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6584779/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31249892
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01902
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author Michaelian, Karo
Padilla, Norberto Santillán
author_facet Michaelian, Karo
Padilla, Norberto Santillán
author_sort Michaelian, Karo
collection PubMed
description Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is a relevant framework from within which to address formidable difficulties encountered in explaining the origin of life; from molecular synthesis and complexation, enzyme-less proliferation, to evolution (including the acquisition of homochirality and information). From within this framework we have proposed that the origin of life was the origin of the dissipative structuring of organic pigments which became the fundamental molecules of life (e.g. RNA and DNA) proliferated through autocatalytic photochemical reactions under the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating the imposed UVC solar photon flux available at the Archean surface. Here we present experimental evidence demonstrating that the absorption and dissipation of UVC light by synthetic DNA of 25 base pairs (and also natural salmon sperm DNA) over a range of temperatures, including below their melting temperature, leads to denaturing. Since denaturing is a non-trivial step on route to enzyme-less replication, our data suggest the possibility of a dissipative route to DNA replication at the origin of life. Such a dissipation-replication relation provides a simple mechanism for the early accumulation of both homochirality and information. Possible mechanisms of UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-65847792019-06-27 UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication Michaelian, Karo Padilla, Norberto Santillán Heliyon Article Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is a relevant framework from within which to address formidable difficulties encountered in explaining the origin of life; from molecular synthesis and complexation, enzyme-less proliferation, to evolution (including the acquisition of homochirality and information). From within this framework we have proposed that the origin of life was the origin of the dissipative structuring of organic pigments which became the fundamental molecules of life (e.g. RNA and DNA) proliferated through autocatalytic photochemical reactions under the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating the imposed UVC solar photon flux available at the Archean surface. Here we present experimental evidence demonstrating that the absorption and dissipation of UVC light by synthetic DNA of 25 base pairs (and also natural salmon sperm DNA) over a range of temperatures, including below their melting temperature, leads to denaturing. Since denaturing is a non-trivial step on route to enzyme-less replication, our data suggest the possibility of a dissipative route to DNA replication at the origin of life. Such a dissipation-replication relation provides a simple mechanism for the early accumulation of both homochirality and information. Possible mechanisms of UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA are discussed. Elsevier 2019-06-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6584779/ /pubmed/31249892 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01902 Text en © 2019 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Michaelian, Karo
Padilla, Norberto Santillán
UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication
title UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication
title_full UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication
title_fullStr UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication
title_full_unstemmed UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication
title_short UVC photon-induced denaturing of DNA: A possible dissipative route to Archean enzyme-less replication
title_sort uvc photon-induced denaturing of dna: a possible dissipative route to archean enzyme-less replication
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6584779/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31249892
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01902
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