Exchange of Information During Prebiotic Evolution

Abstract

The informational processes in nonequilibrium prebiotic microsystems being in fluctuating hydrothermal medium have been considered. The multilevel regular and irregular changes of thermodynamic and physicochemical parameters in the medium continuously stress the microsystems penetrating in them as external informational tracks . The tracks maintain recombination of the macromolecules: The regular external oscillations initiate periodic polymerization and depolymerization forming tandem repeats, while the sudden irregular ones disturb them. Following the Le Chatelier’s principle, the microsystem under oscillating conditions counteracts to incessant external influences by the reflected internal informational tracks , which expand in the opposite direction: from its center into the surroundings (the “Reflected World”). Primary nucleoprotein complexes possess the highest informational capacity due to the different properties of amino acid and nucleotide chains. Continuous transcription of information through them establishes primary correspondence between adjacent blocks of protein(oid) and nucleic acid sequences; its further complication in the relatively stabilized (bistate) prebiotic microsystems forms primary code. According to the author’s approach, a respond of the prebiotic microsystem to external informational tracks includes the following: (a) formation of a certain reflection within the Reflected World (expressed in a combination of signs); (b) its transmission with the internal informational tracks and conversion into the Molecular World through codes; and (c) producing of the function at the destination. With the transition from the prebiotic to the early biological evolution on Earth, advancement of such process led to formation of main properties of bioinformation : functionality, purposefulness, and control over life’s processes.