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asdfftoday at 4:40 AM1 replyview on HN

>However, any RNA-based catalyst could have appeared only at a later time after the establishment of RNA self-replication.

RNA by virtue of its biochemistry is capable of self replication already. Sequence affinity alone is sufficient to drive structure formation. But without a template, structure can also form on its own (example of an open access paper exploring one such mechanism under certain conditions, 1).

This would be enough to kick start things.

1. https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002...


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adrian_btoday at 7:33 AM

Nope.

RNA is not capable of self replication. RNA by virtue of its biochemistry is only capable to be used as a template for replication, but the copying of the template must be done by a different molecular machinery.

If you put almost any RNA molecule in a jar together with monomers, you can wait until the end of time to see its replication.

Normally, RNA can be replicated only by a special enzyme, a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. This kind of protein is used by many viruses.

It is hypothesized that a RNA molecule with a very special structure might have been used in the beginning as the catalyst for template-controlled polymerization, instead of a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, to ensure self-replication. Some experiments have suggested that this is indeed possible.

Only after a self-replicating RNA molecule already existed, or if a RNA molecule existed in combination with a RNA polymerase that was produced by other means than by using a RNA template, other RNA molecules with various other functions could appear, and they would have been replicated by the already existing mechanisms, so they would be inherited by the descendants of a living being.

The link provided by you has nothing to do with RNA replication.

It describes a mechanism for the polymerization of nucleotides, which produces random nucleic acid molecules, not molecules that replicate an existing template.

A chemical reaction of this kind is what must have existed before the appearance of a self-replicating RNA molecule. Among the many random polymers produced before that, there was eventually one capable of self-replication, which started the evolution of genetic information.

This kind of reaction is what I have referred to as "side reactions" that happened during the use of ATP and of the other nucleotides as energy sources for the polycondensation reactions used in living beings to make macromolecules.

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