Open AccessNonenzymatic assembly of active chimeric ribozymes from aminoacylated RNA oligonucleotides
Author(s) -
Aleksandar Radakovic,
Saurja DasGupta,
Tom H. Wright,
Harry R. M. Aitken,
Jack W. Szostak
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2116840119
Subject(s) - ribozyme , ligase ribozyme , rna , biochemistry , biology , oligonucleotide , amino acid , ribosomal rna , ribosome , transfer rna , rna ligase , chemistry , dna , gene
Significance The emergence of a primordial ribosome from the RNA world would have required access to aminoacylated RNA substrates. The spontaneous generation of such substrates without enzymes is inefficient, and it remains unclear how they could be selected for in a prebiotic milieu. In our study, we identify a possible role for aminoacylated RNA in ribozyme assembly, a longstanding problem in the origin-of-life research. We show that aminoacylation of short RNAs greatly accelerates their assembly into functional ribozymes by forming amino acid bridges in the phosphodiester backbone. Our work therefore addresses two key challenges within the origin-of-life field: we demonstrate assembly of functional ribozymes, and we identify a potential evolutionary benefit for RNA aminoacylation that is independent of coded peptide translation.