Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2024
Journal Title
RSC Chemical Biology
Volume Number
11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/d4cb00129j
Version
Publisher PDF: the final published version of the article, with professional formatting and typesetting
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC License
Disciplines
Chemistry
Abstract
Catalytic RNAs (ribozymes) were central to early stages of life on earth. The first ribozymes probably emerged in the presence of prebiotically generated peptides because amino acids can be generated under abiotic conditions, and amino acids can oligomerize into peptides under prebiotically plausible conditions. Here we tested whether the presence of prebiotically plausible peptides could have aided the emergence of ribozymes, by an in vitro selection of self-triphosphorylation ribozymes from random sequence in the presence of ten different octapeptides. These peptides were composed of ten different, prebiotically plausible amino acids, each as mixture of D- and L-stereoisomers. After five rounds of selection and high throughput sequencing analysis, ten ribozymes that appeared most promising for peptide benefits were tested biochemically for possible benefits from each of the ten peptides. The strongest peptide benefit enhanced ribozyme activity by 2.6-fold, similar to the effect from an increase in the pH by one-half unit. Four arbitrarily chosen ribozymes from a previous selection without peptides showed no significant change in their activity in the presence of the ten peptides. Therefore, the used prebiotically plausible peptides – peptides without evolutionarily optimized sequence, without cationic or aromatic side chains – did not provide a strong benefit for the emergence of ribozyme activity. This finding stands in contrast to previously identified polycationic peptides, conjugates between peptides and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and modern mRNA encoded proteins, all of which can strongly increase ribozyme function. The results are discussed in the context of origins of life.
Digital USD Citation
Arriola, Joshua T.; Poordian, Shayan; Martínez Valdivia, Estefanía; Le, Tommy; Leman, Luke J.; Schellinger, Joan G.; and Müller, Ulrich F., "Weak effects of prebiotically plausible peptides on self-triphosphorylation ribozyme function" (2024). Chemistry and Biochemistry: Faculty Scholarship. 49.
https://digital.sandiego.edu/chemistry_facpub/49
