Earth, a planetary PCR machine to create life, or the brief history of a tRNA
About 4 billion years ago, the Earth probably fulfilled the environmental conditions necessary to favour the transition from primitive chemistry to life. Based on a theoretical hairpin duplication origin of tRNAs and its putative peptide-coding capability before ribosomes existed, I postulate here t...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/421868 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/421868 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Earth-thermocycler Nucleopeptide-reciprocal-replicator Origin of life Prebiotic chemistry Proto tRNAs RNA hairpins |
| Sumario: | About 4 billion years ago, the Earth probably fulfilled the environmental conditions necessary to favour the transition from primitive chemistry to life. Based on a theoretical hairpin duplication origin of tRNAs and its putative peptide-coding capability before ribosomes existed, I postulate here that, in this hypothetical environment, Earth's daily temperature cycles could have provided a unique planetary ‘PCR machine’ to create self-replicating RNA hairpins that simultaneously templated amino acid polymerization in a primordial ‘PCR well’ of prebiotic molecules. This early RNA hairpin-peptide interaction could have established a reciprocal nucleopeptide replicator that paved the way for catalytic translation and replication machineries towards the origin of LUCA. |
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