ReviewCold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology2012
The origins of the RNA world.
Review in Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 236 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
236 citing papers in PubMed.
- Continuous UV irradiation played an inconclusive role in selecting the canonical genetic alphabet.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Functional abiotic metabolite assembly hypothesis for the early events in the origin of life.Nature communications · 2026Review
- Exonuclease Ribozyme Encoded in a Circular Genome: On the Initiation of the RNA World.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Review
- Abiotic synthesis of RNase-resistant phosphodiester and pyrophosphate-linked polymers via thermodynamically controlled wet-dry cycling.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Periodic Temperature Fluctuations as an Energy Source for RNA Evolution.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The RNA-First Fallacy: Conflating Evolutionary Ancestry with Prebiotic Primacy.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Structural basis of chaperone mechanisms in cells and the evolutionary emergence of the protein world.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Influence of Phosphate Activation Chemistry on the Selection of the Primordial Genetic Alphabet.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- The selfish ribosome.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- The selfish ribosome.ArXiv · 2026Article
- Theory for sequence selection via phase separation and oligomerization.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Complex and Messy Prebiotic Chemistry: Obstacles and Opportunities for an RNA World.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Illustration of the variable 1D sequences but conserved 2D and 3D structures of different ncRNA nanostructures for tracking the evolution and origin of organisms.Non-coding RNA research · 2026Article
- A symbiotic origin of the ribosome?PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Evolution from Composome to RNA Replicase.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Brave new RNA world(s): from prebiotic chemistry to gene regulation and RNA technology.Frontiers in genetics · 2026Review
- Emergent Chemical Reactivity and Complexity of RNA Condensates.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2025Article
- Article
176 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The general notion of an "RNA World" is that, in the early development of life on the Earth, genetic continuity was assured by the replication of RNA and genetically encoded proteins were not involved as catalysts. There is now strong evidence indicating that an RNA World did indeed exist before DNA- and protein-based life. However, arguments regarding whether life on Earth began with RNA are more tenuous. It might be imagined that all of the components of RNA were available in some prebiotic pool, and that these components assembled into replicating, evolving polynucleotides without the prior existence of any evolved macromolecules. A thorough consideration of this "RNA-first" view of the origin of life must reconcile concerns regarding the intractable mixtures that are obtained in experiments designed to simulate the chemistry of the primitive Earth. Perhaps these concerns will eventually be resolved, and recent experimental findings provide some reason for optimism. However, the problem of the origin of the RNA World is far from being solved, and it is fruitful to consider the alternative possibility that RNA was preceded by some other replicating, evolving molecule, just as DNA and proteins were preceded by RNA.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.