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'Accelerated evolution' converts RNA enzyme to DNA enzyme in vitro

lecular biology-that the transfer of sequential genetic information proceeds from nucleic acid to nucleic acid, and from nucleic acid to protein. But a far different situation exists with regard to the transfer of catalytic function, which does not occur sequentially in contemporary biology. The new study shows that catalytic function can be transmitted sequentially between two different nucleic acid-like molecules, suggesting how it might have been conveyed from pre-RNA molecules to RNA during the simpler pre-RNA world period.

There are several candidates for the initial pre-RNA molecule, all of which have the ability to form base-paired structures with themselves and with RNA. Cross-pairing would allow genetic information to be transferred from these pre-RNA molecules to RNA. The catalytic function of these early enzymes might have been transferred to a corresponding RNA enzyme following the acquisition of a few critical mutations, the study said, just as the evolutionary change of a ribozyme to a deoxyribozyme with the same or similar catalytic functions might also have occurred through random mutation and selection.

For the study, an RNA ribozyme was converted to a corresponding deoxyribozyme through in vitro evolution. The ribozyme was first prepared as a DNA molecule of the same RNA sequence but with no detectable catalytic activity. A large number of randomized variations of this DNA were prepared, and repeated cycles of in vitro evolution were carried out. The result was a deoxyribozyme with about the same level of catalytic activity as the original ribozyme.

"The use of in vitro evolution provides the means to convert a ribozyme to a corresponding deoxyribozyme rapidly," Joyce said. "In the laboratory these procedures allow us to carry out many generations of test tube evolution. The resulting molecules have interesting catalytic properties, they teach us something new about evolution, and they have potential application as ther
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Source:Scripps Research Institute


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