ReviewJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2022
Peptides before and during the nucleotide world: an origins story emphasizing cooperation between proteins and nucleic acids.
Review in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 79 citations in OpenAlex.
- RNA and proteins joined up at the Origins of Life: Persistence is the point.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Artificial intelligence aided design of peptides with custom secondary structure motifs and reduced amino acid alphabets.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Prebiotic β-Strand Peptides May Be a Plausible Solution to the Protocell Permeability Problem.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Review
- Decoding nucleic acid contributions to phase separation and ordering in biomolecular condensates.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Molecular Complexity Constrained Early Amino Acid Recruitment into the Genetic Code.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- RNA-Iron complexes catalyse prebiotic oxygen generation.Communications chemistry · 2026Article
- A symbiotic origin of the ribosome?PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Depsipeptide Analogues of Gly-Ala-Gly: Proton Localization and Effects on Collision-Induced Dissociation.Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry · 2026Article
- Tat-dependent protein translocation and its evolution.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- The Historiography of Galactose and Its Recognition by Galectins.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Coenzyme-protein interactions since early life.eLife · 2025Article
- The Origin of Life and Cellular Systems: A Continuum from Prebiotic Chemistry to Biodiversity.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- RNA binding and coacervation promote preservation of peptide form and function across the heterochiral-homochiral divide.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025Article
- In silico evolution of globular protein folds from random sequences.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Traces of a Primitive RNA Ring in Current Genomes.Biology · 2025Article
- Exploring Life Detection on Mars: Understanding Challenges in DNA Amplification in Martian Regolith Analogue After Fe Ion Irradiation.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Role of Electron Spin, Chirality, and Charge Dynamics in Promoting the Persistence of Nascent Nucleic Acid-Peptide Complexes.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2025Article
- Redefining the Limits of Functional Continuity in the Early Evolution of P-Loop NTPases.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Probing the Limits of Reactant Concentration and Volume in Primitive Polyphenyllactate Synthesis and Microdroplet Assembly Processes.ACS bio & med chem Au · 2025Article
- Order of amino acid recruitment into the genetic code resolved by last universal common ancestor's protein domains.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
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
Recent developments in Origins of Life research have focused on substantiating the narrative of an abiotic emergence of nucleic acids from organic molecules of low molecular weight, a paradigm that typically sidelines the roles of peptides. Nevertheless, the simple synthesis of amino acids, the facile nature of their activation and condensation, their ability to recognize metals and cofactors and their remarkable capacity to self-assemble make peptides (and their analogues) favourable candidates for one of the earliest functional polymers. In this mini-review, we explore the ramifications of this hypothesis. Diverse lines of research in molecular biology, bioinformatics, geochemistry, biophysics and astrobiology provide clues about the progression and early evolution of proteins, and lend credence to the idea that early peptides served many central prebiotic roles before they were encodable by a polynucleotide template, in a putative 'peptide-polynucleotide stage'. For example, early peptides and mini-proteins could have served as catalysts, compartments and structural hubs. In sum, we shed light on the role of early peptides and small proteins
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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.