The emergence of functional cooperation between the three main classes of biomolecules – nucleic acids, peptides and lipids – defines life at the molecular level. However, how such mutually interdependent molecular systems emerged from prebiotic chemistry remains a mystery. A key hypothesis, formulated by Crick, Orgel and Woese over 40 year ago, posits that early life must have been simpler. Specifically, it proposed that an early primordial biology lacked proteins and DNA but instead relied on RNA as the key biopolymer responsible not just for genetic information storage and propagation, but also for catalysis, i.e. metabolism. Indeed, there is compelling evidence for such an ‘RNA world’, notably in the structure of the ribosome as a likely molecular fossil from that time. Nevertheless, one might justifiably ask whether RNA alone would be up to the task. From a purely chemical perspective, RNA is a molecule of rather uniform composition with all four bases comprising organic heterocycles of similar size and comparable polarity and pKa values. Thus, RNA molecules cover a much narrower range of steric, electronic and physicochemical properties than, e.g. the 20 amino acid side-chains of proteins. Herein we will examine the functional potential of RNA (and other nucleic acids) with respect to self-replication, catalysis and assembly into simple protocellular entities.

中文翻译：

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核酸：非生物发生的功能和潜力

三种主要生物分子（核酸、肽和脂质）之间功能合作的出现在分子水平上定义了生命。然而，这种相互依赖的分子系统是如何从益生元化学中产生的仍然是一个谜。克里克、奥格尔和沃斯在 40 多年前提出的一个关键假设认为，早期的生活一定更简单。具体来说，它提出早期的原始生物学缺乏蛋白质和DNA，而是依赖RNA作为关键的生物聚合物，不仅负责遗传信息的存储和传播，而且还负责催化，即新陈代谢。事实上，存在这样一个“RNA 世界”的令人信服的证据，特别是在核糖体的结构中，它可能是当时的一种分子化石。尽管如此，有人可能会问，仅 RNA 是否能胜任这项任务。从纯化学的角度来看，RNA 是一种组成相当均匀的分子，所有四个碱基都包含大小相似和极性相当的有机杂环，并且PK一种价值观。因此，与例如蛋白质的 20 个氨基酸侧链相比，RNA 分子涵盖的空间、电子和物理化学特性范围要窄得多。在这里，我们将研究 RNA（和其他核酸）在自我复制、催化和组装成简单的原细胞实体方面的功能潜力。