Issue 36, 2022

Collective adaptability in a replication network of minimal nucleobase sequences

Abstract

A major challenge for understanding the origins of life is to explore how replication networks can engage in an evolutionary process. Herein, we shed light on this problem by implementing a network constituted by two different types of extremely simple biological components: the amino acid cysteine and the canonical nucleobases adenine and thymine, connected through amide bonds to the cysteine amino group and oxidation of its thiol into three possible disulfides. Supramolecular and kinetic analyses revealed that both self- and mutual interactions between such dinucleobase compounds drive their assembly and replication pathways. Those pathways involving sequence complementarity led to enhanced replication rates, suggesting a potential bias for selection. The interplay of synergistic dynamics and competition between replicators was then simulated, under conditions that are not easily accessible with experiments, in an open reactor parametrized and constrained with the unprecedentedly complete experimental kinetic data obtained for our replicative network. Interestingly, the simulations show bistability, as a selective amplification of different species depending on the initial mixture composition. Overall, this network configuration can favor a collective adaptability to changes in the availability of feedstock molecules, with disulfide exchange reactions serving as 'wires' that connect the different individual auto- and cross-catalytic pathways.

Graphical abstract: Collective adaptability in a replication network of minimal nucleobase sequences

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
29 Apr 2022
Accepted
05 Aug 2022
First published
11 Aug 2022
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2022,13, 10715-10724

Collective adaptability in a replication network of minimal nucleobase sequences

S. Vela-Gallego, Z. Pardo-Botero, C. Moya and A. de la Escosura, Chem. Sci., 2022, 13, 10715 DOI: 10.1039/D2SC02419E

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements