Spontaneous Advent of Genetic Diversity in RNA Populations Through Multiple Recombination Mechanisms
Published In
RNA
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2019
Subjects
RNA, Oligomers, Life -- Origin, Genetic recombination, Catalytic RNA
Abstract
There are several plausible abiotic synthetic routes from prebiotic chemical materials to ribonucleotides and even short RNA oligomers. However, for refinement of the RNA World hypothesis to help explain the origins of life on the Earth, there needs to be a manner by which such oligomers can increase their length and expand their sequence diversity. Oligomers longer than at least 10-20 nucleotides would be needed for raw material for subsequent natural selection. Here, we explore spontaneous RNA-RNA recombination as a facile means by which such length and diversity enhancement could have been realized. Motivated by the discovery that RNA oligomers stored for long periods of time in the freezer expand their lengths, we systematically investigated RNA-RNA recombination processes. In addition to one known mechanism, we discovered at least three new mechanisms. In these, one RNA oligomer acts as a splint to catalyze the hybridization of two other oligomers and facilitates the attack of a 5'-OH, a 3'-OH, or a 2'-OH nucleophile of one oligomer onto a target atom of another. This leads to the displacement of one RNA fragment and the production of new recombinant oligomers. We show that this process can explain the spontaneous emergence of sequence complexity, both in vitro and in silico.
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DOI
10.1261/rna.068908.118
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/28838
Citation Details
Smail, B. A., Clifton, B. E., Mizuuchi, R., & Lehman, N. (2019). Spontaneous advent of genetic diversity in RNA populations through multiple recombination mechanisms. RNA (New York, N.Y.), 25(4), 453-464. https://doi.org/10.1261/rna.068908.118
Description
© 2019 Smail et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society This article is distributed exclusively by the RNA Society for the first 12 months after the full-issue publication date (see http://rnajournal.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After 12 months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.