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Prebiotic chemistry and the origin of the RNA world (2004)
| Venue: | Critical Rev. Biochem. Mol. Biol |
| Citations: | 22 - 0 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Orgel04prebioticchemistry,
author = {Leslie E. Orgel},
title = {Prebiotic chemistry and the origin of the RNA world},
journal = {Critical Rev. Biochem. Mol. Biol},
year = {2004},
pages = {99--123}
}
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Abstract
The demonstration that ribosomal peptide synthesis is a ribozyme-catalyzed reaction makes it almost certain that there was once an RNA World. The central problem for origin-of-life studies, therefore, is to understand how a protein-free RNA World became established on the primitive Earth. We first review the literature on the prebiotic synthesis of the nucleotides, the nonenzymatic synthe-sis and copying of polynucleotides, and the selection of ribozyme catalysts of a kind that might have facilitated polynucleotide repli-cation. This leads to a brief outline of the Molecular Biologists’ Dream, an optimistic scenario for the origin of the RNA World. In the second part of the review we point out the many unresolved problems presented by the Molecular Biologists ’ Dream. This in turn leads to a discussion of genetic systems simpler than RNA that might have “invented ” RNA. Finally, we review studies of prebiotic membrane formation.
Keyphrases
rna world prebiotic chemistry molecular biologist dream polynucleotide repli-cation central problem origin-of-life study prebiotic membrane formation ribozyme-catalyzed reaction genetic system simpler brief outline ribozyme catalyst many unresolved problem ribosomal peptide synthesis optimistic scenario second part primitive earth prebiotic synthesis nonenzymatic synthe-sis protein-free rna world
