Abstract
It is proposed that the primordial genetic material could have been peptide nucleic aicds,i.e., DNA analogues having a peptide backbone. PNA momomers based on the amino acid, α, γ-diaminobutyric acid or ornithine are suggested as compounds that could have been formed in the prebiotic soup. Finally, the possibility of a PNA/RNA world is presented, in which PNA constitutes the stable genetic material, while RNA which may be polymerized using the PNA as template accounts for enzymatic activities including PNA replication.
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Nielsen, P.E. Peptide nucleic acid (PNA): A model structure for the primordial genetic material?. Origins Life Evol Biosphere 23, 323–327 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01582083
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01582083