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Self‐instructed condensation of amino acids and the origin of biological information
Author(s) -
Dose Klaus
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
international journal of quantum chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.484
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1097-461X
pISSN - 0020-7608
DOI - 10.1002/qua.560260712
Subject(s) - polynucleotide , prebiotic , amino acid , abiogenesis , nucleic acid , macromolecule , chemistry , chemical evolution , rna , biochemistry , combinatorial chemistry , astrobiology , biology , physics , stars , astronomy , gene
In contemporary cells biological information is largely stored in nucleic acids. Therefore, a prerequisite in many theories on the origin of cellular life is the pre‐existence of self‐replicating polynucleotides that had to be formed by abiotic processes on the prebiotic Earth. It is usually assumed that the spontaneous synthesis of a self‐replicating polynucleotide could take place readily. However, serious stereochemical obstacles exist which make such a synthesis extremely improbable. Amino acids, on the other hand, which are abundantly formed in prebiotic simulation experiments, are relatively easily polymerized to macromolecules (protoproteins) that share with modern proteins many properties: e.g., definable nonrandom structure, selected amino acid sequences, enzymelike activities, and self‐assembly into supramolecular structures. Prebiotic polyamino acids are therefore regarded as the first informational macromolecules. The origin of this information is the chemical reactivity of the various prebiotic amino acids and their chemical response to their environment. The first informational polynucleotides were likely formed by a polynucleotide polymerase activity of prebiotic protoproteins. A comtemporary model for this process is seen, e.g., in the activity of template‐free QB‐replicase.