Scientists one Step Closer to Replicating the Primordial RNA World

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have taken a big step toward the laboratory re-creation of the "RNA world," which is generally believed to have preceded modern life forms based on DNA and proteins.

"This is probably the first time some of these complex RNA molecules have been synthesized with a ribozyme [a special RNA enzyme] since the end of the RNA world four billion years ago," said TSRI Professor Gerald F. Joyce, the senior author of the study.

The results from the study, reported this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show the scientists have succeeded in creating a ribozyme that can basically serve both to amplify genetic information and to generate functional molecules.

The new ribozyme can replicate short lengths of RNA efficiently and perform transcription on even longer RNAs to make functional RNA molecules with complex structures--coming close to what scientists imagine in terms of an RNA replicator that could have supported life before modern biology, where protein enzymes now handle gene replication and transcription.

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