ArticleJournal of molecular evolution2009
Origin of self-replicating biopolymers: autocatalytic feedback can jump-start the RNA world.
Article in Journal of molecular evolution, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Autocatalytic assembly of a chimeric aminoacyl-RNA synthetase ribozyme.Science advances · 2025Article
- Spatial structure supports diversity in prebiotic autocatalytic chemical ecosystems.Npj complexity · 2025Article
- Multistable Protocells Can Aid the Evolution of Prebiotic Autocatalytic Sets.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Nucleotides Entrapped in Liposome Nanovesicles as Tools for Therapeutic and Diagnostic Use in Biomedical Applications.Pharmaceutics · 2023Review
- The Bootstrap Model of Prebiotic Networks of Proteins and Nucleic Acids.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- When Is a Reaction Network a Metabolism? Criteria for Simple Metabolisms That Support Growth and Division of Protocells.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Self-Reproduction and Darwinian Evolution in Autocatalytic Chemical Reaction Systems.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Understanding the Genetic Code.Journal of bacteriology · 2019Review
- Ecology and Evolution in the RNA World Dynamics and Stability of Prebiotic Replicator Systems.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2017Review
- Toy trains, loaded dice and the origin of life: dimerization on mineral surfaces under periodic drive with Gaussian inputs.Royal Society open science · 2017Article
- Foldamer hypothesis for the growth and sequence differentiation of prebiotic polymers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Chemical Evolution and the Evolutionary Definition of Life.Journal of molecular evolution · 2017Article
- Co-operation between Polymerases and Nucleotide Synthetases in the RNA World.PLoS computational biology · 2016Article
- A Hypothesis: Life Initiated from Two Genes, as Deduced from the RNA World Hypothesis and the Characteristics of Life-Like Systems.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2016Article
- The Effect of Limited Diffusion and Wet-Dry Cycling on Reversible Polymerization Reactions: Implications for Prebiotic Synthesis of Nucleic Acids.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2016Article
- Dynamics of prebiotic RNA reproduction illuminated by chemical game theory.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- The RNA World: molecular cooperation at the origins of life.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2015Review
- Towards an evolutionary theory of the origin of life based on kinetics and thermodynamics.Open biology · 2013Review
- A necessary condition for coexistence of autocatalytic replicators in a prebiotic environment.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2013Article
- Selection for replicases in protocells.PLoS computational biology · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Life is based on biopolymers that have the ability to replicate themselves. Here we consider how a self-replicating RNA system may have originated. We consider a reaction system in which polymerization is possible by the addition of an activated monomer to the end of a chain. We suppose that a small fraction of polymers longer than some minimum length L have the ability to act as polymerase ribozymes. Polymerization can occur spontaneously at a slow rate and can also be catalyzed by polymerase ribozymes, if these ribozymes exist. The system contains autocatalytic feedback: increasing the polymerization rate causes the ribozyme concentration to increase, which causes the polymerization rate to further increase. For an infinite volume, the dynamics are deterministic. There are two stable states: a 'dead' state with a very low concentration of ribozymes and a polymerization rate almost equal to the spontaneous rate, and a 'living' state with a high concentration of ribozymes and a high rate of polymerization occurring via ribozyme catalysis. In a finite volume, such as the interior of a lipid vesicle or other small compartment, the reaction dynamics is stochastic and concentration fluctuations can occur. Using a stochastic simulation, we show that if a small number of ribozymes is initially formed spontaneously, this can be enough to drive the system from the dead to the living state where ribozyme-catalyzed synthesis of large numbers of additional ribozymes occurs. This transition occurs most easily in volumes of intermediate size.
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Registered trials
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