Solvent viscosity facilitates replication and ribozyme catalysis from an RNA duplex in a model prebiotic process

Area of Science:

• Origin of Life Studies
• Prebiotic Chemistry
• Molecular Evolution

Background:

• The RNA World hypothesis suggests RNA preceded DNA and proteins.
• A key challenge is explaining prebiotic RNA replication before polymerases.
• Structured RNAs typically perform poorly as replication templates.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate a prebiotic mechanism for duplex RNA replication.
• To address how RNA molecules could act as both catalysts and templates.
• To explore the role of environmental conditions in early RNA evolution.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a viscous solvent to facilitate RNA strand separation and templating.
• Investigated simultaneous information transfer from both strands of RNA duplexes.
• Examined the conformational changes of a hammerhead ribozyme in solution.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated simultaneous information transfer from both strands of long RNA duplex templates.
• Showed that a viscous solvent overcomes the strand inhibition problem in RNA replication.
• Confirmed that the viscous solvent facilitates the transition of a hammerhead ribozyme from a duplex to an active state.

Conclusions:

• Viscous solvents enable efficient prebiotic RNA replication from duplex templates.
• Environmental fluctuations can allow RNA to alternate between replication and catalytic roles.
• This work provides insights into the molecular processes enabling the origin of life.