ArticleNucleic acids research2024
Enzymic recognition of amino acids drove the evolution of primordial genetic codes.
Article in Nucleic acids research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Human aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases as integrators of translation and cell signalling networks.Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology · 2026Review
- The Borderlands of Foldability: Lessons from Simplified Proteins.Trends in chemistry · 2026Article
- Comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of AARS1, a newly identified lactyltransferase in human cancers.Cancer cell international · 2026Article
- Reduced Amino Acid Substitution Matrices Find Traces of Ancient Coding Alphabets in Modern Day Proteins.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Protein Structural Phylogenetics.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Review
- Structural Enzymology, Phylogenetics, Differentiation, and Symbolic Reflexivity at the Dawn of Biology.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Evolution is coupled with branching across many granularities of life.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase urzymes optimized by deep learning behave as a quasispecies.Structural dynamics (Melville, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- The protein kinases family in fungi: adaptability, virulence and conservation between species.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- 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
- AARS Online: A collaborative database on the structure, function, and evolution of the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases.IUBMB life · 2024Article
- A genomic database furnishes minimal functional glycyl-tRNA synthetases homologous to other, designed class II urzymes.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Order of amino acid recruitment into the genetic code resolved by Last Universal Common Ancestor's protein domains.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Primordial aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases preferred minihelices to full-length tRNA.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Article
- Base Pairing Promoted the Self-Organization of Genetic Coding, Catalysis, and Free-Energy Transduction.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Genomic database furnishes a spontaneous example of a functional Class II glycyl-tRNA synthetase urzyme.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Origins of Genetic Coding: Self-Guided Molecular Self-Organisation.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
How genetic information gained its exquisite control over chemical processes needed to build living cells remains an enigma. Today, the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (AARS) execute the genetic codes in all living systems. But how did the AARS that emerged over three billion years ago as low-specificity, protozymic forms then spawn the full range of highly-specific enzymes that distinguish between 22 diverse amino acids? A phylogenetic reconstruction of extant AARS genes, enhanced by analysing modular acquisitions, reveals six AARS with distinct bacterial, archaeal, eukaryotic, or organellar clades, resulting in a total of 36 families of AARS catalytic domains. Small structural modules that differentiate one AARS family from another played pivotal roles in discriminating between amino acid side chains, thereby expanding the genetic code and refining its precision. The resulting model shows a tendency for less elaborate enzymes, with simpler catalytic domains, to activate amino acids that were not synthesised until later in the evolution of the code. The most probable evolutionary route for an emergent amino acid type to establish a place in the code was by recruiting older, less specific AARS, rather than adapting contemporary lineages. This process, retrofunctionalisation, differs from previously described mechanisms through which amino acids would enter the code.
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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.