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新研究描绘出RNA-肽世界的可能场景
2022-05-15 14:17

2022年5月11日,《自然》杂志发表了德国慕尼黑大学Thomas Carell团队的最新工作,该研究描述了RNA-肽世界的可能场景。

研究人员展示了非经典的RNA碱基,这些碱基今天在转运和核糖体RNA中发现,并被认为是RNA世界的遗迹,能够直接在RNA上建立肽的合成。所发现的化学反应创造了复杂的肽装饰的RNA嵌合分子,这表明早期存在一个RNA-肽世界,核糖体肽合成可能是从这个世界上出现的。在非经典遗迹核苷的帮助下,在RNA上生长肽的能力提供了早期共价连接的RNA和肽共同进化的可能性,然后可能在更高的复杂程度上解离,创造出核酸-蛋白质的二元世界,这是地球上所有生命的标志。
 
据悉,“RNA世界”概念是生命起源理论的最基本支柱之一。它预测生命是由越来越复杂的自我复制的RNA分子进化而来的。这个RNA世界随后如何推进到下一个阶段,即蛋白质成为生命的催化剂,而RNA则将其功能主要缩减为信息存储,这是进化论中最神秘的鸡和蛋的难题之一。
 
附:英文原文

Title: A prebiotically plausible scenario of an RNA–peptide world

Author: Mller, Felix, Escobar, Luis, Xu, Felix, Wgrzyn, Ewa, Nainyt, Milda, Amatov, Tynchtyk, Chan, ChunYin, Pichler, Alexander, Carell, Thomas

Issue&Volume: 2022-05-11

Abstract: The RNA world concept1 is one of the most fundamental pillars of the origin of life theory2,3,4. It predicts that life evolved from increasingly complex self-replicating RNA molecules1,2,4. The question of how this RNA world then advanced to the next stage, in which proteins became the catalysts of life and RNA reduced its function predominantly to information storage, is one of the most mysterious chicken-and-egg conundrums in evolution3,4,5. Here we show that non-canonical RNA bases, which are found today in transfer and ribosomal RNAs6,7, and which are considered to be relics of the RNA world8,9,10,11,12, are able to establish peptide synthesis directly on RNA. The discovered chemistry creates complex peptide-decorated RNA chimeric molecules, which suggests the early existence of an RNA–peptide world13 from which ribosomal peptide synthesis14 may have emerged15,16. The ability to grow peptides on RNA with the help of non-canonical vestige nucleosides offers the possibility of an early co-evolution of covalently connected RNAs and peptides13,17,18, which then could have dissociated at a higher level of sophistication to create the dualistic nucleic acid–protein world that is the hallmark of all life on Earth.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04676-3

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04676-3

 

Nature:《自然》,创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团,最新IF:69.504
官方网址:http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接:http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html


本期文章:《自然》:Online/在线发表

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