Sprecher
Beschreibung
Life’s defining characteristics such as information storage, replication, and catalysis pose a fundamental puzzle in the origin-of-life research. Here, we advance a theoretical framework showing how a pool of initially random heteropolymers, undergoing nonenzymatic, template-assisted replication under cyclic environmental changes, can spontaneously acquire catalytic function. Our recently published eLife study [1] demonstrates, through a mathematical model, that sequence-specific cleavage activity can emerge and become selectively advantageous. Even minimal spontaneous cleavage generates primer fragments that enhance replication, setting the stage for the emergence of functional catalysis. When catalytic cleavage increases the rate over spontaneous background by a factor of approximately 1,000, cooperative networks of four interdependent oligomer subpopulations can arise and outperform noncatalytic chains. Inspired by hammerhead ribozyme architectures, the study explores the phase space of catalytic efficiency and elongation asymmetry, revealing selection pressures that further drive catalytic enhancement. This mechanism provides a plausible route from simple mutual templating to systems capable of both information transfer and primitive enzymatic activity, linking "information-first" scenarios to the emergence of function.
This study extends our earlier works that theoretically predicted [2,3] and experimentally verified [4] the emergence of long polymers from random pools and the subsequent spontaneous reduction of their sequence entropy.
References:
[1] Tkachenko AV, Maslov S. Emergence of catalytic function in prebiotic information coding polymers. eLife 12, RP91397 (2024). https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.91397.3
[2] Tkachenko AV, Maslov S. Spontaneous emergence of autocatalytic information coding polymers. J Chem Phys 143, 045102 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922545
[3] Tkachenko AV, Maslov S. Onset of natural selection in autocatalytic heteropolymers. J Chem Phys 149, 134901 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5048488
[4] Kudella PW, Tkachenko AV, Salditt A, Maslov S, Braun D. Structured sequences emerge from random pool when replicated by templated ligation. PNAS 118, e2018830118 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2018830118
