The Origin of Life on Earth: A Paradigm Shift

[Manwon Lender]

Investigating how life may have emerged so long ago on the early Earth is one of science’s most fascinating challenges. Which conditions must have prevailed for the fundamental building blocks of more complex life to form? One of the main answers is based upon the so-called RNA world concept, which was formulated by molecular biology pioneer Walter Gilbert in 1986. According to the hypothesis, nucleotides — the fundamental building blocks of the nucleic acids A, C, G, and U – arose from the primordial soup, and short RNA molecules were produced from the nucleotides. These so-called oligonucleotides were already capable of encoding small amounts of genetic information.

The Carell group has now discovered that these non-canonical nucleosides are the key ingredient, as it were, that allows the RNA world to link up with the world of proteins. Some of these molecular fossils can, when located in RNA, “adorn” themselves with individual amino acids or even small chains of them (peptides), according to Carell. This results in small chimeric RNA-peptide structures when amino acids or peptides happen to be present in a solution simultaneously alongside the RNA. In such structures, the amino acids and peptides linked to the RNA then even react with each other to form ever larger and more complex peptides. “In this way, we created RNA-peptide particles in the lab that could encode genetic information and even formed lengthening peptides,” says Carell.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-origin-of-life-on-earth-a-paradigm-shift/

A prebiotically plausible scenario of an RNA–peptide world: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04676-3

 

 

[Cookie Monster]

On 5/14/2022 at 12:02 PM, Manwon Lender said:

Investigating how life may have emerged so long ago on the early Earth is one of science’s most fascinating challenges. Which conditions must have prevailed for the fundamental building blocks of more complex life to form? One of the main answers is based upon the so-called RNA world concept, which was formulated by molecular biology pioneer Walter Gilbert in 1986. According to the hypothesis, nucleotides — the fundamental building blocks of the nucleic acids A, C, G, and U – arose from the primordial soup, and short RNA molecules were produced from the nucleotides. These so-called oligonucleotides were already capable of encoding small amounts of genetic information.

The Carell group has now discovered that these non-canonical nucleosides are the key ingredient, as it were, that allows the RNA world to link up with the world of proteins. Some of these molecular fossils can, when located in RNA, “adorn” themselves with individual amino acids or even small chains of them (peptides), according to Carell. This results in small chimeric RNA-peptide structures when amino acids or peptides happen to be present in a solution simultaneously alongside the RNA. In such structures, the amino acids and peptides linked to the RNA then even react with each other to form ever larger and more complex peptides. “In this way, we created RNA-peptide particles in the lab that could encode genetic information and even formed lengthening peptides,” says Carell.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-origin-of-life-on-earth-a-paradigm-shift/

A prebiotically plausible scenario of an RNA–peptide world: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04676-3

 

 

You might be interested in panspermia: Panspermia - Wikipedia

We live in an area of the Milky Way that constants gaseous remnants from a ancient supernova. It is theorised life emerged in this material, and through gravity has made its way into our Solar System and onto Earth. Then involved up into the lifeforms we see today.

[Manwon Lender]

58 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

You might be interested in panspermia: Panspermia - Wikipedia

We live in an area of the Milky Way that constants gaseous remnants from a ancient supernova. It is theorised life emerged in this material, and through gravity has made its way into our Solar System and onto Earth. Then involved up into the lifeforms we see today.

Thanks for the information, but I am very familiar with the Panspermia theory and I actually support it.