The origin of life: the first self-replicating molecules were nucleotides
Unaffiliated, BREA, CA, United States
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biomolecules, Biosynthesis
- Keywords
- self-replication , nucleotides
- Copyright
- © 2019 Ohsaka
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. The origin of life: the first self-replicating molecules were nucleotides. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27919v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27919v1
Abstract
Difficulties to synthesize RNA nucleotides from their subunits in modern labs under simulated environments leads us to propose a possible process for the synthesis by cross complimentary self-replication with help of clay minerals, which might be operated on prebiotic Earth. Clay minerals are known to be good catalysts and certainly existed on prebiotic Earth. The self-replication of RNA nucleotides (monomers) may be considered as the origin of potential self-replication of some extant RNA polymers, and also the reason for homochirality of RNA molecules.
Author Comment
This paper proposes a new process for formation of RNA nucleotides from their subunits.