ArticleNucleic acids research2011
The prebiotic evolutionary advantage of transferring genetic information from RNA to DNA.
Article in Nucleic acids research, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 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
40 citing papers in PubMed, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
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- The RNA-DNA world and the emergence of DNA-encoded heritable traits.RNA biology · 2024Article
- Insight into the structures of unusual base pairs in RNA complexes containing a primer/template/adenosine ligand.RSC chemical biology · 2023Article
- Rolling Circles as a Means of Encoding Genes in the RNA World.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Computer simulations of Template-Directed RNA Synthesis driven by temperature cycling in diverse sequence mixtures.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Thermodynamic and Kinetic Sequence Selection in Enzyme-Free Polymer Self-Assembly inside a Non-equilibrium RNA Reactor.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- A Mutation Threshold for Cooperative Takeover.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Relaxed Substrate Specificity in Qβ Replicase through Long-Term In Vitro Evolution.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- 'Whole Organism', Systems Biology, and Top-Down Criteria for Evaluating Scenarios for the Origin of Life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- From DNA damage to mutations: All roads lead to aging.Ageing research reviews · 2021Review
- Competition between bridged dinucleotides and activated mononucleotides determines the error frequency of nonenzymatic RNA primer extension.Nucleic acids research · 2021Article
- Inosine in Biology and Disease.Genes · 2021Review
- Highly Sensitive and Cost-Effective Portable Sensor for Early Gastric Carcinoma Diagnosis.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Promiscuous Ribozymes and Their Proposed Role in Prebiotic Evolution.Chemical reviews · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In the early 'RNA world' stage of life, RNA stored genetic information and catalyzed chemical reactions. However, the RNA world eventually gave rise to the DNA-RNA-protein world, and this transition included the 'genetic takeover' of information storage by DNA. We investigated evolutionary advantages for using DNA as the genetic material. The error rate of replication imposes a fundamental limit on the amount of information that can be stored in the genome, as mutations degrade information. We compared misincorporation rates of RNA and DNA in experimental non-enzymatic polymerization and calculated the lowest possible error rates from a thermodynamic model. Both analyses found that RNA replication was intrinsically error-prone compared to DNA, suggesting that total genomic information could increase after the transition to DNA. Analysis of the transitional RNA/DNA hybrid duplexes showed that copying RNA into DNA had similar fidelity to RNA replication, so information could be maintained during the genetic takeover. However, copying DNA into RNA was very error-prone, suggesting that attempts to return to the RNA world would result in a considerable loss of information. Therefore, the genetic takeover may have been driven by a combination of increased chemical stability, increased genome size and irreversibility.
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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.