Sprecher
Beschreibung
Early biology is thought to have propagated its genetic information through strands of RNA. To recapitulate this process in the laboratory, ribozymes have been developed that polymerise short RNA building blocks on a template strand. This synthesis activity has the potential to support a biological behaviour – RNA replication – if the double-stranded RNA product can be separated into fresh template strands for use in further cycles of synthesis. However, such strand separation is both kinetically and thermodynamically unfavourable, as RNA duplexes are difficult to separate and quick to reanneal.
I will present an unexpected capacity for trinucleotide ‘triplet’ RNA building blocks to solve this strand separation problem. They allow iterative cycles of strand synthesis and strand separation to drive ribozyme-catalysed exponential amplification of RNA. I will then discuss what happens in open-ended amplification reactions supported by this all-RNA replication system.
