Small cofactors may assist protein emergence from RNA world: clues from RNA-protein complexes

It is now widely accepted that at an early stage in the evolution of life an RNA world arose, in which RNAs both served as the genetic material and catalyzed diverse biochemical reactions. Then, proteins have gradually replaced RNAs because of their superior catalytic properties in catalysis over ti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-07, Vol.6 (7), p.e22494-e22494
Main Authors: Shen, Liang, Ji, Hong-Fang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adenine
Amino acids
Analysis
Astrobiology
Biological evolution
Biology
Catalysis
Chemical reactions
Chemical synthesis
Cofactors
Databases as Topic
Emergence
Enzymes
Evolution, Molecular
Genetic diversity
Hypotheses
Meteors & meteorites
Nucleotides - metabolism
Origin of Life
Polypeptides
Protein Binding
Proteins
Proteins - metabolism
Purines
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
RNA - metabolism
RNA-Binding Proteins - metabolism
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Summary:It is now widely accepted that at an early stage in the evolution of life an RNA world arose, in which RNAs both served as the genetic material and catalyzed diverse biochemical reactions. Then, proteins have gradually replaced RNAs because of their superior catalytic properties in catalysis over time. Therefore, it is important to investigate how primitive functional proteins emerged from RNA world, which can shed light on the evolutionary pathway of life from RNA world to the modern world. In this work, we proposed that the emergence of most primitive functional proteins are assisted by the early primitive nucleotide cofactors, while only a minority are induced directly by RNAs based on the analysis of RNA-protein complexes. Furthermore, the present findings have significant implication for exploring the composition of primitive RNA, i.e., adenine base as principal building blocks.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0022494