Abstract
We assemble recent experimental work on the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase evolution into the context of theoretical studies on the nature of the problems preventing the emergence of genetic coding. What initially appeared as experimental curiosities—evidence for ancestral bidirectional coding of the two synthetase classes, the extended inversion symmetries in higher-order structure and functionality, and the strong correlations between amino acid physical chemistry and both protein folding and the tRNA identity elements used by synthetases to recognize cognate tRNAs—fit the landscape painted by the theoretical studies like a hand in a glove. We conclude that the prevailing RNA World scenario does not furnish an adequate basis for genetic coding. An important corollary is that the evolution of gene expression was very closely coupled to that of gene replication.
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Carter, C.W., Wills, P.R. (2018). Did Gene Expression Co-evolve with Gene Replication?. In: Pontarotti, P. (eds) Origin and Evolution of Biodiversity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95954-2_16
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