ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
An RNA polymerase ribozyme that synthesizes its own ancestor.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 122 citations in OpenAlex.
- 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
- Exonuclease Ribozyme Encoded in a Circular Genome: On the Initiation of the RNA World.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A universal Fab targeting a conserved U1A-RNA epitope for RNA structure determination by cryo-EM.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- The RNA-First Fallacy: Conflating Evolutionary Ancestry with Prebiotic Primacy.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The selfish ribosome.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- The selfish ribosome.ArXiv · 2026Article
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- Roles of dimeric intermediates in RNA-catalyzed rolling circle synthesis.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Activation of Caged Functional RNAs by An Oxidative Transformation.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2025Article
- Diversity and evolution of viroids and viroid-like agents with circular RNA genomes revealed by metatranscriptome mining.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Biomathematical enzyme kinetics model of prebiotic autocatalytic RNA networks: degenerating parasite-specific hyperparasite catalysts confer parasite resistance and herald the birth of molecular immunity.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Evolution of the substrate specificity of an RNA ligase ribozyme from phosphorimidazole to triphosphate activation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Triphasic Development of the Genetic Code.Chemical reviews · 2024Review
- The Evolutionary Transition of the RNA World to Obcells to Cellular-Based Life.Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Article
- Reflections on the Origin of Coded Protein Biosynthesis.Biomolecules · 2024Review
- Uncovered diversity of infectious circular RNAs: A new paradigm for the minimal parasites?Npj viruses · 2024Review
- Architecture of an RNA polymerase ribozyme illuminates the RNA World.Trends in genetics : TIG · 2024Article
- RNA life on the edge of catastrophe.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Transient states during the annealing of mismatched and bulged oligonucleotides.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The RNA-based organisms from which modern life is thought to have descended would have depended on an RNA polymerase ribozyme to copy functional RNA molecules, including copying the polymerase itself. Such a polymerase must have been capable of copying structured RNAs with high efficiency and high fidelity to maintain genetic information across successive generations. Here the class I RNA polymerase ribozyme was evolved in vitro for the ability to synthesize functional ribozymes, resulting in the markedly improved ability to synthesize complex RNAs using nucleoside 5'-triphosphate (NTP) substrates. The polymerase is descended from the class I ligase, which contains the same catalytic core as the polymerase. The class I ligase can be synthesized by the improved polymerase as three separate RNA strands that assemble to form a functional ligase. The polymerase also can synthesize the complement of each of these three strands. Despite this remarkable level of activity, only a very small fraction of the assembled ligases retain catalytic activity due to the presence of disabling mutations. Thus, the fidelity of RNA polymerization should be considered a major impediment to the construction of a self-sustained, RNA-based evolving system. The propagation of heritable information requires both efficient and accurate synthesis of genetic molecules, a requirement relevant to both laboratory systems and the early history of life on Earth.
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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.