All articles tagged with #rna world
A new study in Nature Communications identifies 4.33 billion years ago as the optimal time for the 'RNA World' to emerge on Earth. Researchers used 3D modeling to show that asteroid bombardment ceased around 4.4 billion years ago, allowing crustal temperatures to stabilize. This window precedes the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) by roughly 130 million years, narrowing the timeline for life’s origins.
A Nature Communications study using 3D impact modeling suggests Earth cooled enough for an RNA-based origin of life between about 4.4 and 4.3 billion years ago, with optimal conditions around 4.33 billion years ago. While this narrows the timeline for the RNA world, it doesn’t pin down the exact moment life began, since liquid water, nutrients and other environmental factors must align; zircon evidence of liquid water by ~4.4 Ga supports the window and the work also informs questions about habitability on Mars.
Researchers discovered four classes of ribozyme ligases that catalyze a novel ligation: the substrate’s 2′-OH attacks the ribozyme’s own 5′-triphosphate only when the substrate bears a neighboring 3′-phosphate, producing a 2′–5′ phosphodiester bond. These ligases show strict dependence on a 3′-phosphate and can ligate even without an external template (for at least one variant), with Mg2+ likely helping localize catalytic ions. In addition to revealing a new RNA-catalysis mode, the authors demonstrate selective capture and amplification of 3′-phosphorylated RNAs from mixed cellular RNA, offering a potential transcriptomics reagent to profile RNA cleavage products. The work also provides a plausible, salvage-like RNA repair mechanism in the RNA World and highlights how a single selection pressure can yield multiple related ribozymes with shared structural features.
Explores the RNA world hypothesis, showing how RNA catalysis and ribozymes—and a ribosomal RNA core—support an RNA-first origin of life, while outlining prebiotic pathways from simple molecules like hydrogen cyanide and noting competing ideas such as amyloid scaffolds and the ongoing uncertainty about proving the theory.
Scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered an RNA enzyme that can accurately replicate and evolve RNA strands, providing strong evidence for the RNA World hypothesis and shedding light on the origins and complexity of life. This breakthrough brings researchers closer to synthesizing RNA-based life in the laboratory, offering insights into early evolution and the potential for autonomous RNA life. The study underscores the critical role of replication fidelity in enabling evolution and paves the way for future experiments testing other ideas about the origins of life.
Researchers have discovered a ribozyme that could have facilitated the emergence of RNA-based life on Earth, shedding light on the potential origins of life and the transition from simple molecules to complex organisms. This finding supports the RNA World hypothesis, which suggests that RNA played a crucial role in kickstarting Earth's biology without the involvement of DNA or proteins. The team's experiment demonstrated a higher-fidelity RNA polymerase ribozyme that produced RNA strands with greater accuracy, offering insights into the early stages of evolution and the possibility of autonomous RNA replication in the near future.
New research at the Salk Institute provides compelling evidence supporting the RNA World hypothesis, suggesting that the origins of life may have involved molecular-scale evolution in RNA. The study unveils an RNA enzyme capable of making accurate copies of other functional RNA strands and allowing new variants to emerge over time, bringing scientists closer to re-creating RNA-based life in the laboratory. The findings highlight the critical importance of replication fidelity in making evolution possible and pave the way for future experiments testing other ideas about the origins of life.
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has revealed the first atomic structure of an RNA replicase, a nano-sized copy machine implicated in the origin of life. The RNA replicase, developed to be efficient at copying long templates using nucleotide triplets in eutectic ice phase, shows similarities to protein-based polymerases. Researchers conducted a comprehensive mutational study to understand its crucial elements and built a model for RNA-based RNA copying consistent with experimental data. The study provides insight into designing more efficient replication mechanisms and may lead to advancements in RNA nanotechnology and medicine.
Scientists are trying to determine if life on Earth evolved only once or if different living beings emerged from different origins. The origin of life is a central question in modern biology, and probably the hardest to study. The current scientific consensus is that life emerged from non-living molecules in a natural process called abiogenesis, most likely in the darkness of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Abiogenesis could have happened more than once, but all extant life beings descend from a single shared last universal common ancestor of life (LUCA).
Scientists are trying to determine if life on Earth evolved only once or if different living beings emerged from different origins. The origin of life is a central question in modern biology, and probably the hardest to study. The current scientific consensus is that life emerged from non-living molecules in a natural process called abiogenesis, most likely in the darkness of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Abiogenesis could have happened more than once, but all extant life beings descend from a single shared last universal common ancestor of life (LUCA).