ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
Sequence self-selection by cyclic phase separation.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Theory for sequence selection via phase separation and oligomerization.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Polymerization and replication of primordial RNA induced by clay-water interface dynamics.Communications chemistry · 2025Article
- Induction and Manipulation of Biomolecular Condensates Through Spatially Heterogeneous Solution Conditions.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2025Article
- Selection-diversification interplay in oligonucleotide chemical evolution.Biophysics and physicobiology · 2025Article
- Nonequilibrium Wet-Dry Cycling Acts as a Catalyst for Chemical Reactions.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The emergence of functional oligonucleotides on early Earth required a molecular selection mechanism to screen for specific sequences with prebiotic functions. Cyclic processes such as daily temperature oscillations were ubiquitous in this environment and could trigger oligonucleotide phase separation. Here, we propose sequence selection based on phase separation cycles realized through sedimentation in a system subjected to the feeding of oligonucleotides. Using theory and experiments with DNA, we show sequence-specific enrichment in the sedimented dense phase, in particular of short 22-mer DNA sequences. The underlying mechanism selects for complementarity, as it enriches sequences that tightly interact in the dense phase through base-pairing. Our mechanism also enables initially weakly biased pools to enhance their sequence bias or to replace the previously most abundant sequences as the cycles progress. Our findings provide an example of a selection mechanism that may have eased screening for auto-catalytic self-replicating oligonucleotides.
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