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The RNA world hypothesis places RNA at center-stage when life originated. The RNA world hypothesis is supported by the observations that ribosomes are ribozymes: [120] [121] the catalytic site is composed of RNA, and proteins hold no major structural role and are of peripheral functional importance. This was confirmed with the deciphering of ...
Woese's dogma is a principle of evolutionary biology first put forth by biophysicist Carl Woese in 1977. It states that the evolution of ribosomal RNA was a necessary precursor to the evolution of modern life forms. [1]
Spiegelman's Monster is an RNA chain of only 218 nucleotides that is able to be reproduced by the RNA replication enzyme RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, also called RNA replicase. It is named after its creator, Sol Spiegelman , of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who first described it in 1965.
The RNA Ligase ribozyme was the first of several types of synthetic ribozymes produced by in vitro evolution and selection techniques. They are an important class of ribozymes because they catalyze the assembly of RNA fragments into phosphodiester RNA polymers, a reaction required of all extant nucleic acid polymerases and thought to be ...
In the eocyte hypothesis, the organism at the root of all eocytes may have been a ribocyte of the RNA-world. For cellular DNA and DNA handling, an "out of virus" scenario has been proposed: storing genetic information in DNA may have been an innovation performed by viruses and later handed over to ribocytes twice, once transforming them into bacteria and once transforming them into archaea.
In 1984, Benner's laboratory at Harvard was the first to report the chemical synthesis of a gene encoding an enzyme, [18] [19] [20] following Khorana's synthesis of a shorter gene for tRNA in 1970. [21] This was the first designed gene of any kind, a pioneering achievement that laid the groundwork for protein engineering. [22]
Under the RNA world hypothesis (replication-first scenario), [3] [4] over a precellular and early-cellular phase, [3] [4] the earliest self-replicating biological systems were based on catalytic RNA evolving stage by stage to a nearly complete ancestral cell, the last universal common ancestor [2] [3] [4] from which the three domains of life [1 ...
The period followed the hypothesized RNA world and ended with the formation of DNA and contemporary proteins. [2] In the RNP world, RNA molecules began to synthesize peptides. These would eventually become proteins which have since assumed most of the diverse functions RNA performed previously. This transition paved the way for DNA to replace ...