ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Encapsulation of ribozymes inside model protocells leads to faster evolutionary adaptation.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolution from Composome to RNA Replicase.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- A new LUCApedia database for data-driven research on early evolutionary history.Bioinformatics advances · 2026Article
- The secret life of RNA and lipids.RNA biology · 2025Review
- Article
- On an RNA-Membrane Protogenome.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Protocells by spontaneous reaction of cysteine with short-chain thioesters.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
- In the Beginning: Let Hydration Be Coded in Proteins for Manifestation and Modulation by Salts and Adenosine Triphosphate.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Optimized periphery-core interface increases fitness of the Bacillus subtilis glmS ribozyme.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Protocell Effects on RNA Folding, Function, and Evolution.Accounts of chemical research · 2024Article
- Effect of montmorillonite K10 clay on RNA structure and function.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
- Evolution at the Origins of Life?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Cyclophospholipids Enable a Protocellular Life Cycle.ACS nano · 2023Article
- An inorganic mineral-based protocell with prebiotic radiation fitness.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Optimization and Enhancement of the Peroxidase-like Activity of Hemin in Aqueous Solutions of Sodium Dodecylsulfate.ACS omega · 2023Article
- Discovering pathways through ribozyme fitness landscapes using information theoretic quantification of epistasis.RNA (New York, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Structural Expansion of Catalytic RNA Nanostructures through Oligomerization of a Cyclic Trimer of Engineered Ribozymes.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- How did life become cellular?Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Emergent properties as by-products of prebiotic evolution of aminoacylation ribozymes.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Nonenzymatic assembly of active chimeric ribozymes from aminoacylated RNA oligonucleotides.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- An Approach to the De Novo Synthesis of Life.Accounts of chemical research · 2022Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
Functional biomolecules, such as RNA, encapsulated inside a protocellular membrane are believed to have comprised a very early, critical stage in the evolution of life, since membrane vesicles allow selective permeability and create a unit of selection enabling cooperative phenotypes. The biophysical environment inside a protocell would differ fundamentally from bulk solution due to the microscopic confinement. However, the effect of the encapsulated environment on ribozyme evolution has not been previously studied experimentally. Here, we examine the effect of encapsulation inside model protocells on the self-aminoacylation activity of tens of thousands of RNA sequences using a high-throughput sequencing assay. We find that encapsulation of these ribozymes generally increases their activity, giving encapsulated sequences an advantage over nonencapsulated sequences in an amphiphile-rich environment. In addition, highly active ribozymes benefit disproportionately more from encapsulation. The asymmetry in fitness gain broadens the distribution of fitness in the system. Consistent with Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, encapsulation therefore leads to faster adaptation when the RNAs are encapsulated inside a protocell during in vitro selection. Thus, protocells would not only provide a compartmentalization function but also promote activity and evolutionary adaptation during the origin of life.
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