ArticleLife (Basel, Switzerland)2016
The Effect of Limited Diffusion and Wet-Dry Cycling on Reversible Polymerization Reactions: Implications for Prebiotic Synthesis of Nucleic Acids.
Article in Life (Basel, Switzerland), 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 67 citations in OpenAlex.
- Probiotic microcapsule polysaccharide-protein composite system: construction, mechanism and application.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Abiotic synthesis of RNase-resistant phosphodiester and pyrophosphate-linked polymers via thermodynamically controlled wet-dry cycling.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Conditions Enabling the Persistence of Cooperating Synthetase, Ligase, and Mutation-Inhibitor Catalytic Polymers.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Article
- Stringent selection on kinetics of condensation reactions: early steps in chemical evolution.Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP · 2026Article
- High-Yield Prebiotic Polymerization of 2',3'-Cyclic Nucleotides under Wet-Dry Cycling.ACS central science · 2025Article
- Polymerization and replication of primordial RNA induced by clay-water interface dynamics.Communications chemistry · 2025Article
- Prebiotic Peptide Synthesis: How Did Longest Peptide Appear?Journal of molecular evolution · 2025Review
- The Origin(s) of LUCA: Computer Simulation of a New Theory.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Qualitative Monitoring of Proto-Peptide Condensation by Differential FTIR Spectroscopy.ACS earth & space chemistry · 2024Article
- Microfluidics-Based Drying-Wetting Cycles to Investigate Phase Transitions of Small Molecules Solutions.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Nonequilibrium Wet-Dry Cycling Acts as a Catalyst for Chemical Reactions.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2024Article
- The GARD Prebiotic Reproduction Model Described in Order and Complexity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Sustained wet-dry cycling on early Mars.Nature · 2023Article
- Order and Complexity in the RNA World.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Polypeptide Chain Growth Mechanisms and Secondary Structure Formation in Glycine Gas-Phase Deposition on Silica Surfaces.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2023Article
- Novel Apparatuses for Incorporating Natural Selection Processes into Origins-of-Life Experiments to Produce Adaptively Evolving Chemical Ecosystems.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Origins of Life Research: The Conundrum between Laboratory and Field Simulations of Messy Environments.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- The Effect of Environment on the Evolution and Proliferation of Protocells of Increasing Complexity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Evolution towards increasing complexity through functional diversification in a protocell model of the RNA world.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The Origin(s) of Cell(s): Pre-Darwinian Evolution from FUCAs to LUCA : To Carl Woese (1928-2012), for his Conceptual Breakthrough of Cellular Evolution.Journal of molecular evolution · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A long-standing problem for the origins of life is that polymerization of many biopolymers, including nucleic acids and peptides, is thermodynamically unfavourable in aqueous solution. If bond making and breaking is reversible, monomers and very short oligomers predominate. Recent experiments have shown that wetting and drying cycles can overcome this problem and drive the formation of longer polymers. In the dry phase, bond formation is favourable, but diffusion is restricted, and bonds only form between monomers that are initially close together. In the wet phase, some of the bonds are hydrolyzed. However, repositioning of the molecules allows new bonds to form in the next dry phase, leading to an increase in mean polymer length. Here, we consider a simple theoretical model that explains the effect of cycling. There is an equilibrium length distribution with a high mean length that could be achieved if diffusion occurred freely in the dry phase. This equilibrium is inaccessible without diffusion. A single dry cycle without diffusion leads to mean lengths much shorter than this. Repeated cycling leads to a significant increase in polymerization relative to a single cycle. In the most favourable case, cycling leads to the same equilibrium length distribution as would be achieved if free diffusion were possible in the dry phase. These results support the RNA World scenario by explaining a potential route to synthesis of long RNAs; however, they also imply that cycling would be beneficial to the synthesis of other kinds of polymers, including peptides, where bond formation involves a condensation reaction.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.