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Periodic Melting of Oligonucleotides by Oscillating Salt Concentrations Triggered by Microscale Water Cycles Inside Heated Rock Pores
Author(s) -
Ianeselli Alan,
Mast Christof B.,
Braun Dieter
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201907909
Subject(s) - microscale chemistry , oligonucleotide , salt (chemistry) , rna , chemistry , duplex (building) , melting temperature , annealing (glass) , dna , chemical engineering , materials science , biochemistry , organic chemistry , mathematics education , mathematics , engineering , composite material , gene
To understand the emergence of life, a better understanding of the physical chemistry of primordial non‐equilibrium conditions is essential. Significant salt concentrations are required for the catalytic function of RNA. The separation of oligonucleotides into single strands is a difficult problem as the hydrolysis of RNA becomes a limiting factor at high temperatures. Salt concentrations modulate the melting of DNA or RNA, and its periodic modulation would enable melting and annealing cycles at low temperatures. In our experiments, a moderate temperature difference created a miniaturized water cycle, resulting in fluctuations in salt concentration, leading to melting of oligonucleotides at temperatures 20 °C below the melting temperature. This would enable the reshuffling of duplex oligonucleotides, necessary for ligation chain replication. The findings suggest an autonomous route to overcome the strand‐separation problem of non‐enzymatic replication in early evolution.