Research Unveils RNA-Based Life's Genome Repair Origins
Researchers have engineered a ribozyme capable of repairing broken RNA strands, supporting the 'RNA World' hypothesis regarding the origins of life. This discovery suggests that RNA could have managed its own genetic preservation without the need for proteins.
Why it matters
This provides significant insight into the chemical evolution of life, potentially solving the 'chicken-and-egg' dilemma of whether DNA or proteins came first.
In most modern cells, DNA stores the genetic blueprint, and relies on proteins to replicate, repair and build from those blueprints. At the same time, proteins require instructions from DNA to be made in the first place.
So which one came first? Neither, hypothesize researchers like Saurja DasGupta , a biochemist at the University of Notre Dame.
DasGupta seeks to better understand the chemical origins of life by studying the structure, function and evolution of RNA, an intermediary molecule that can both store genetic information and catalyze biochemical reactions. In a study out today in Nature Communications , DasGupta and colleagues present a key mechanism for sustaining RNA-based life: an engineered enzyme that selectively recognizes and repairs broken RNA.
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