Abstract
THE production of amino acids and their condensation to polypeptides under plausibly prebiotic conditions have long been known1,2. But despite the central importance of molecular self-replication in the origin of life, the feasibility of peptide self-replication has not been established experimentally3–6. Here we report an example of a self-replicating peptide. We show that a 32-residue α-helical peptide based on the leucine-zipper domain of the yeast transcription factor GCN4 can act autocatalytically in templating its own synthesis by accelerating the thioester-promoted amide-bond condensation of 15- and 17-residue fragments in neutral, dilute aqueous solutions. The self-replication process displays parabolic growth pattern with the initial rates of product formation correlating with the square-root of initial template concentration.
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Lee, D., Granja, J., Martinez, J. et al. A self-replicating peptide. Nature 382, 525–528 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/382525a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/382525a0
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