A widely held ‘RNA first’ model proposes that RNA gave organic matter on Earth its first access to Darwinism. Such a proposal, which requires a mechanism to generate RNA from a prebiotic ‘soup’, must also manage the intrinsic instability of any RNA so formed. Here, we show that silicon dioxide (silica, SiO2), in the form of synthetic opal, adsorbs and stabilizes RNA from aqueous solution. The extent of adsorption on fully amorphous silica is less, as is the extent of adsorption on the surface of crystalline quartz. We show that the RNA adsorbed on opal is considerably more stable than the same RNA molecule free in aqueous solution at pH 9.5. This provides a mechanism by which any RNA formed in a prebiotic environment could have been concentrated and stabilized so that it could have later participated in the first Darwinian biology.

中文翻译：

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蛋白石吸附并稳定 RNA——益生元二氧化硅矿物的层次结构

一个广为接受的“RNA 优先”模型提出，RNA 使地球上的有机物质第一次接近达尔文主义。这种提议需要一种从益生元“汤”中生成 RNA 的机制，还必须管理如此形成的任何 RNA 的内在不稳定性。在这里，我们展示了合成蛋白石形式的二氧化硅（二氧化硅，SiO2）从水溶液中吸附和稳定 RNA。完全无定形二氧化硅上的吸附程度较小，结晶石英表面上的吸附程度也较小。我们表明，吸附在蛋白石上的 RNA 比在 pH 9.5 的水溶液中游离的相同 RNA 分子要稳定得多。这提供了一种机制，通过该机制，在生命前环境中形成的任何 RNA 都可以被浓缩和稳定，以便它以后可以参与第一个达尔文生物学。