How ancient organic molecules produced life?
Washington, Dec 19 (IANS) A simple experiment helped researchers provide some clues to one of biology’s most complex questions: how ancient organic molecules came together to form the basis of life. It demonstrated how ancient RNA joined together to reach a biologically relevant length. RNA, the single-stranded precursor to DNA, normally expands one nucleic base at a time, growing sequentially like a linked chain. The problem is that in the primordial world RNA molecules didn’t have enzymes to catalyse this reaction, and while RNA growth can proceed naturally, the rate would be so slow the RNA could never get more than a few pieces long (for as nucleic bases attach to one end, they can also drop off the other). Ernesto Di Mauro and colleagues at the University of Rome examined if there was some mechanism to overcome this thermodynamic barrier, by incubating short RNA fragments in water of different temperatures and pH (acidity levels). They found that under favourable conditions (acidi
