Ice as a protocellular medium for RNA replication
Ice as a protocellular medium for RNA replication
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DOI：
10.1038/ncomms1076
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发表时间：
2010-09-01
影响因子：
16.6
通讯作者：
Holliger, Philipp
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Attwater, James;Wochner, Aniela;Holliger, Philipp
生命起源的一个关键转变是出现了一种能够自我复制的信息聚合物，并将其划分在原始细胞结构中。我们表明，冰的物理化学性质，一个简单的介质广泛分布在一个温和的早期地球，可以介导这种转变之前出现的膜质原始细胞。冰不仅能促进RNA聚合酶核酶的活性，还能保护它不被水解降解，使其能够合成非常长的复制产物。冰还减轻了RNA复制对prebiotically难以置信的底物浓度的依赖，同时在共晶相的复杂微观结构内提供准细胞区室化。之前已经显示，Euphorice阶段促进核苷酸前体的从头合成，以及活化的核苷酸缩合成随机RNA寡聚体。我们的研究结果支持了冰作为一个易感环境的更广泛的作用，促进了从益生元合成到RNA自我复制和细胞前达尔文进化的出现的所有步骤。
A crucial transition in the origin of life was the emergence of an informational polymer capable of self-replication and its compartmentalization within protocellular structures. We show that the physicochemical properties of ice, a simple medium widespread on a temperate early Earth, could have mediated this transition prior to the advent of membraneous protocells. Ice not only promotes the activity of an RNA polymerase ribozyme but also protects it from hydrolytic degradation, enabling the synthesis of exceptionally long replication products. Ice furthermore relieves the dependence of RNA replication on prebiotically implausible substrate concentrations, while providing quasicellular compartmentalization within the intricate microstructure of the eutectic phase. Eutectic ice phases had previously been shown to promote the de novo synthesis of nucleotide precursors, as well as the condensation of activated nucleotides into random RNA oligomers. Our results support a wider role for ice as a predisposed environment, promoting all the steps from prebiotic synthesis to the emergence of RNA self-replication and precellular Darwinian evolution.