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Cited by 49Origins and Evolution of LifeRNA and protein synthesis mechanismsDNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry

Characterization of RNA-Like Oligomers from Lipid-Assisted Nonenzymatic Synthesis: Implications for Origin of Informational Molecules on Early Earth

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Mungi, Chaitanya, Rajamani, Sudha·2015·Life
DOI 10.3390/life5010065PMC PMC4390841
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Abstract

Prebiotic polymerization had to be a nonenzymatic, chemically driven process. These processes would have been particularly favored in scenarios which push reaction regimes far from equilibrium. Dehydration-rehydration (DH-RH) cycles are one such regime thought to have been prevalent on prebiotic Earth in niches like volcanic geothermal pools. The present study defines the optimum DH-RH reaction conditions for lipid-assisted polymerization of nucleotides. The resultant products were characterized to understand their chemical makeup. Primarily, our study demonstrates that the resultant RNA-like oligomers have abasic sites, which means these oligomers lack information-carrying capability because of losing most of their bases during the reaction process. This results from low pH and high temperature conditions, which, importantly, also allows the formation of sugar-phosphate oligomers when ribose 5'-monophosphates are used as the starting monomers instead. Formation of such oligomers would have permitted sampling of a large variety of bases on a preformed polymer backbone, resulting in “prebiotic phosphodiester polymers” prior to the emergence of modern RNA-like molecules. This suggests that primitive genetic polymers could have utilized bases that conferred greater N-glycosyl bond stability, a feature crucial for information propagation in low pH and high temperature regimes of early Earth.

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  • The wet-dry synthesis of RNA-like polymers recently repeated by others has thus far been limited to the use of canonical mononucleotides of RNA.

    “The wet-dry synthesis of RNA-like polymers recently repeated by others (Mungi and Rajamani, 2015; Mungi et al., 2019) has thus far been limited to the use of canonical mononucleotides of RNA.”

    From The Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life (2020) · cites this paper as Mungi and Rajamani, 2015

    The paper does study dehydration–rehydration synthesis from nucleotide monophosphates, but it is not limited to them. Results §3.8 reports subjecting ribose 5′-monophosphate, which lacks a nucleobase, to the same cycles and obtaining sugar-phosphate oligomers. The indexed copy supplies section labels but no page numbers. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Research works printed but not linked: 23

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Authors
Mungi, C., & Rajamani, S.
Affiliations
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune (IN)
Corresponding author
Rajamani, Sudha
ORCID
Rajamani, Sudha
Venue
Life
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2015-01-05
Volume
5
Issue
1
Pages
65-84
ISSN
2075-1729 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/life5010065
PMC
PMC4390841
OpenAlex
W1978513086
Cited by
49
References
7
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 4
FWCI
3.79
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Life (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › DNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry
Keywords
dehydration-rehydration cycles, abasic sites, origin of information, early Earth, nucleotide bases

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