Title Ancestral reconstruction of life's translational apparatus

生命的起源是科学中最大的未解决的问题之一，位于生物学和地球化学的交叉点。这个问题的一个关键部分是理解生命的信息系统是如何随着遗传编码的出现而形成的。将储存在核苷酸聚合物中的遗传信息翻译成多肽的翻译装置本身由多核苷酸和多肽的复杂混合物构成。翻译装置的核心功能和结构在生物学中几乎是普遍保守的。这使得分子机制（tRNA，氨酰-tRNA合成酶和核糖体）可以用分子古生物学的形式进行研究。通过使用系统发育和结构方法分析现代结构，可以在实验室中对翻译机器的祖先形式进行计算建模和重建。这种重建打开了一扇了解地质摇篮中生命环境和行为的窗口，并有助于澄清遗传密码本身的出现。

The origin of life is one of the greatest unsolved problems in science, lying at the intersection of biology and geochemistry. A key part of this problem is understanding how life's informational systems came into being with the emergence of genetic coding. The translational apparatus, which works to translate genetic information stored in nucleotide polymers into polypeptides, is itself constructed with a complex blend of both polynucleotides and polypeptides. The translational apparatus' core functions and structures are nearly universally conserved across biology. This allows the molecular machinery involved (tRNA, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, and the ribosome) to be studied with a form of molecular palaeontology. By analysing modern structures using phylogenetic and structural methods, the ancestral forms of the translational machinery can be computationally modelled and reconstructed in the laboratory. Such reconstruction opens a window into the environment and behaviours of life in its geological cradle and can help to clarify the emergence of the genetic code itself.