ArticlePLoS computational biology2014
Evolution of the division of labor between genes and enzymes in the RNA world.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Generalizing the central dogma as a cross-hierarchical principle of biology.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Circular at the very beginning: on the initial genomes in the RNA world.RNA biology · 2024Article
- Evolution of genome fragility enables microbial division of labor.Molecular systems biology · 2023Article
- Article
- Dynamics and stability in prebiotic information integration: an RNA World model from first principles.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Article
- The evolutionary dynamics of metabolic protocells.PLoS computational biology · 2018Article
- Article
- Evolutionary Conflict Leads to Innovation: Symmetry Breaking in a Spatial Model of RNA-Like Replicators.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2017Article
- The origin of a primordial genome through spontaneous symmetry breaking.Nature communications · 2017Article
- The Conservation and Function of RNA Secondary Structure in Plants.Annual review of plant biology · 2016Review
- Article
- Phenotype/genotype sequence complementarity and prebiotic replicator coexistence in the metabolically coupled replicator system.BMC evolutionary biology · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The RNA world is a very likely interim stage of the evolution after the first replicators and before the advent of the genetic code and translated proteins. Ribozymes are known to be able to catalyze many reaction types, including cofactor-aided metabolic transformations. In a metabolically complex RNA world, early division of labor between genes and enzymes could have evolved, where the ribozymes would have been transcribed from the genes more often than the other way round, benefiting the encapsulating cells through this dosage effect. Here we show, by computer simulations of protocells harboring unlinked RNA replicators, that the origin of replicational asymmetry producing more ribozymes from a gene template than gene strands from a ribozyme template is feasible and robust. Enzymatic activities of the two modeled ribozymes are in trade-off with their replication rates, and the relative replication rates compared to those of complementary strands are evolvable traits of the ribozymes. The degree of trade-off is shown to have the strongest effect in favor of the division of labor. Although some asymmetry between gene and enzymatic strands could have evolved even in earlier, surface-bound systems, the shown mechanism in protocells seems inevitable and under strong positive selection. This could have preadapted the genetic system for transcription after the subsequent origin of chromosomes and DNA.
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