ArticleNature chemistry2013
Functional RNAs exhibit tolerance for non-heritable 2'-5' versus 3'-5' backbone heterogeneity.
Article in Nature chemistry, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers.
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53 citing papers in PubMed, 107 citations in OpenAlex.
- A ribozyme ligase that requires a 3' terminal phosphate on its RNA substrate.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Efficient Assembly of Functional RNA byJournal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- High-Yield Prebiotic Polymerization of 2',3'-Cyclic Nucleotides under Wet-Dry Cycling.ACS central science · 2025Article
- The XNA alphabet.Nucleic acids research · 2025Review
- Activation of Caged Functional RNAs by An Oxidative Transformation.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2025Article
- Selection-diversification interplay in oligonucleotide chemical evolution.Biophysics and physicobiology · 2025Article
- Constraints on the emergence of RNA through non-templated primer extension with mixtures of potentially prebiotic nucleotides.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Ionic liquid-caged nucleic acids enable active folding-based molecular recognition with hydrolysis resistance.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Minimal RNA self-reproduction discovered from a random pool of oligomers.Chemical science · 2023Article
- Nonenzymatic Template-Directed Primer Extension Using 2'-3' Cyclic Nucleotides Under Wet-Dry Cycles.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2023Article
- Experimental Tests of the Virtual Circular Genome Model for Nonenzymatic RNA Replication.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
- Rethinking nucleic acids from their origins to their applications.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Phosphorylation in liquid sulfur dioxide under prebiotically plausible conditions.Communications chemistry · 2022Article
- Template-Free Assembly of Functional RNAs by Loop-Closing Ligation.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2022Article
- Catalytic Synthesis of Polyribonucleic Acid on Prebiotic Rock Glasses.Astrobiology · 2022Article
- Hybrid DNA/RNA nanostructures with 2'-5' linkages.Nanoscale · 2020Article
- In vitro Selection of Chemically Modified DNAzymes.ChemistryOpen · 2020Review
- Effect of 2'-5'/3'-5' phosphodiester linkage heterogeneity on RNA interference.Nucleic acids research · 2020Article
- Regioselective formation of RNA strands in the absence of magnesium ions.Nucleic acids research · 2020Article
- The difficult case of an RNA-only origin of life.Emerging topics in life sciences · 2019Article
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3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
A plausible process for non-enzymatic RNA replication would greatly simplify models of the transition from prebiotic chemistry to simple biology. However, all known conditions for the chemical copying of an RNA template result in the synthesis of a complementary strand that contains a mixture of 2'-5' and 3'-5' linkages, rather than the selective synthesis of only 3'-5' linkages as found in contemporary RNA. Here we show that such backbone heterogeneity is compatible with RNA folding into defined three-dimensional structures that retain molecular recognition and catalytic properties and, therefore, would not prevent the evolution of functional RNAs such as ribozymes. Moreover, the same backbone heterogeneity lowers the melting temperature of RNA duplexes that would otherwise be too stable for thermal strand separation. By allowing copied strands to dissociate, this heterogeneity may have been one of the essential features that allowed RNA to emerge as the first biopolymer.
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