Ice as a protocellular medium for RNA replication

James Attwater, Aniela Wochner, Vitor B. Pinheiro, Alan Coulson and Philipp Holliger ()
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James Attwater: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Aniela Wochner: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Vitor B. Pinheiro: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Alan Coulson: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Philipp Holliger: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Nature Communications, 2010, vol. 1, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract A crucial transition in the origin of life was the emergence of an informational polymer capable of self-replication and its compartmentalization within protocellular structures. We show that the physicochemical properties of ice, a simple medium widespread on a temperate early Earth, could have mediated this transition prior to the advent of membraneous protocells. Ice not only promotes the activity of an RNA polymerase ribozyme but also protects it from hydrolytic degradation, enabling the synthesis of exceptionally long replication products. Ice furthermore relieves the dependence of RNA replication on prebiotically implausible substrate concentrations, while providing quasicellular compartmentalization within the intricate microstructure of the eutectic phase. Eutectic ice phases had previously been shown to promote the de novo synthesis of nucleotide precursors, as well as the condensation of activated nucleotides into random RNA oligomers. Our results support a wider role for ice as a predisposed environment, promoting all the steps from prebiotic synthesis to the emergence of RNA self-replication and precellular Darwinian evolution.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1076

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