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On Alternative Biological Scenarios for the Evolutionary Transitions to DNA and Biological Protein Synthesis

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Origins of Life: The Primal Self-Organization

Abstract

The RNA world hypothesis has become a central part of current thought on the origin of life. For biologists, this has provided especially fertile ground, since the biological origins of genetically encoded protein synthesis and of deoxyribonucleotide synthesis through ribonucleotide reduction can both be understood within an RNA world framework. However, these are not the only possible routes by which proteins and DNA could have evolved. Some proteins are synthesised by modular non-ribosomal peptide synthetases, and E. coli have recently been engineered to synthesise deoxyribonucleotides via the previously hypothetical reverse deoxyriboaldolase reaction. In this chapter, I consider to what degree these alternative processes impact our understanding of the evolutionary transitions from RNA to proteins and DNA.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the editors for the invitation to contribute to this book. I thank the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for past support via a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. Support of the New Zealand Marsden Fund is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences and Biomolecular Interaction Centre, University of Canterbury, 4800, Christchurch, 8140, New Zealand

    Anthony M. Poole

  2. Department of Molecular Biology and Functional Genomics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden

    Anthony M. Poole

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Correspondence to Anthony M. Poole .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen Biocenter, Ole Maaløes Vej 5, Copenhagen N, 2200, Denmark

    Richard Egel

  2. Hinterer Rindweg 21, Ladenburg, 68526, Germany

    Dirk-Henner Lankenau

  3. , School of Physics and School of Biology/, University of Osnabrueck, Barbarastrasse 7, Osnabrueck, 49076, Germany

    Armen Y. Mulkidjanian

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Poole, A.M. (2011). On Alternative Biological Scenarios for the Evolutionary Transitions to DNA and Biological Protein Synthesis. In: Egel, R., Lankenau, DH., Mulkidjanian, A. (eds) Origins of Life: The Primal Self-Organization. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21625-1_10

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