Origins of Life: First Came Evolutionary Dynamics

Overview

Journal QRB Discov

Publisher Cambridge University Press

Specialty Biophysics

Date 2023 Aug 2

PMID 37529034

Authors

Charles Kocher

Ken A Dill

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

When life arose from prebiotic molecules 3.5 billion years ago, what came first? Informational molecules (RNA, DNA), functional ones (proteins), or something else? We argue here for a different logic: rather than seeking a , we seek a Biology required an ability to evolve before it could choose and optimise materials. We hypothesise that the was rooted in the Modelling shows how short random peptides can collapse in water and catalyse the elongation of others, powering both increased folding stability and emergent autocatalysis through a disorder-to-order process.

Citing Articles

Origins of Life: The Protein Folding Problem all over again?.

Kocher C, Dill K Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024; 121(34):e2315000121.

PMID: 39133848 PMC: 11348307. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2315000121.

The prebiotic emergence of biological evolution.

Kocher C, Dill K R Soc Open Sci. 2024; 11(7):240431.

PMID: 39050718 PMC: 11265915. DOI: 10.1098/rsos.240431.

Formation of extraterrestrial peptides and their derivatives.

Krasnokutski S, Jager C, Henning T, Geffroy C, Remaury Q, Poinot P Sci Adv. 2024; 10(16):eadj7179.

PMID: 38630826 PMC: 11023503. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj7179.

Protein structures unravel the signatures and patterns of deep time evolution.

Harish A QRB Discov. 2024; 5:e3.

PMID: 38616890 PMC: 11016368. DOI: 10.1017/qrd.2024.4.

References

Griffith E, Vaida V . In situ observation of peptide bond formation at the water-air interface. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012; 109(39):15697-701. PMC: 3465415. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1210029109. View

Guseva E, Zuckermann R, Dill K . Foldamer hypothesis for the growth and sequence differentiation of prebiotic polymers. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017; 114(36):E7460-E7468. PMC: 5594640. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1620179114. View

Lifson S . On the crucial stages in the origin of animate matter. J Mol Evol. 1997; 44(1):1-8. DOI: 10.1007/pl00006115. View

Finking R, Marahiel M . Biosynthesis of nonribosomal peptides1. Annu Rev Microbiol. 2004; 58:453-88. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.micro.58.030603.123615. View

Lim W, Sauer R . Alternative packing arrangements in the hydrophobic core of lambda repressor. Nature. 1989; 339(6219):31-6. DOI: 10.1038/339031a0. View

Lee B, Zuckermann R, Dill K . Folding a nonbiological polymer into a compact multihelical structure. J Am Chem Soc. 2005; 127(31):10999-1009. DOI: 10.1021/ja0514904. View

Adamala K, Szostak J . Competition between model protocells driven by an encapsulated catalyst. Nat Chem. 2013; 5(6):495-501. PMC: 4041014. DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1650. View

Dill K, Ozkan S, Weikl T, Chodera J, Voelz V . The protein folding problem: when will it be solved?. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2007; 17(3):342-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2007.06.001. View

Benner S . Defining life. Astrobiology. 2010; 10(10):1021-30. PMC: 3005285. DOI: 10.1089/ast.2010.0524. View

10.

Kocher C, Dill K . Darwinian evolution as a dynamical principle. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023; 120(11):e2218390120. PMC: 10089213. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2218390120. View

11.

Nassar R, Dignon G, Razban R, Dill K . The Protein Folding Problem: The Role of Theory. J Mol Biol. 2021; 433(20):167126. PMC: 8547331. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2021.167126. View

12.

Ding P, Kawamura K, Ferris J . Oligomerization of uridine phosphorimidazolides on montmorillonite: a model for the prebiotic synthesis of RNA on minerals. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 1996; 26(2):151-71. DOI: 10.1007/BF01809853. View

13.

Johnson A, Cleaves H, Dworkin J, Glavin D, Lazcano A, Bada J . The Miller volcanic spark discharge experiment. Science. 2008; 322(5900):404. DOI: 10.1126/science.1161527. View

14.

Kanavarioti A, Monnard P, Deamer D . Eutectic phases in ice facilitate nonenzymatic nucleic acid synthesis. Astrobiology. 2002; 1(3):271-81. DOI: 10.1089/15311070152757465. View

15.

Frenkel-Pinter M, Haynes J, Mohyeldin A, C M, Sargon A, Petrov A . Mutually stabilizing interactions between proto-peptides and RNA. Nat Commun. 2020; 11(1):3137. PMC: 7305224. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16891-5. View

16.

Robertson M, Joyce G . The origins of the RNA world. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2010; 4(5). PMC: 3331698. DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a003608. View

17.

Hordijk W, Steel M . Conditions for evolvability of autocatalytic sets: a formal example and analysis. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2014; 44(2):111-24. DOI: 10.1007/s11084-014-9374-5. View

18.

Kamtekar S, Schiffer J, Xiong H, Babik J, Hecht M . Protein design by binary patterning of polar and nonpolar amino acids. Science. 1993; 262(5140):1680-5. DOI: 10.1126/science.8259512. View

19.

Holden D, Morato N, Cooks R . Aqueous microdroplets enable abiotic synthesis and chain extension of unique peptide isomers from free amino acids. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022; 119(42):e2212642119. PMC: 9586328. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2212642119. View

20.

Cleland C, Chyba C . Defining 'life'. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2002; 32(4):387-93. DOI: 10.1023/a:1020503324273. View