Related Experiment Videos
Are prions a relic of an early stage of peptide evolution?
B M Rode1, W Flader, C Sotriffer
1Theoretical Chemistry Division, Institute for General, Inorganic, and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Austria. Bernd.M.Rode@uibk.ac.at
Abstract:
The rather unique properties of prions and their presence in very different kinds of living species suggest that this type of molecule was created at a very early stage of evolution and may even represent a relic from a time where peptide evolution was ongoing and RNA/DNA did not yet exist. A comparison of the most frequently occurring amino acid sequences in known prions with the sequences preferentially formed in the salt-induced peptide formation reaction, the most simple mechanism enabling the formation of peptides under primitive earth conditions, shows a remarkable coincidence that strongly supports this hypothesis.