The RNA World: Piecing together the historical development of a hypothesis

Authors

  • Antonio Lazcano UNAM, Mexico City (Mexico).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.6.5146

Keywords:

Origin of life, RNA World, ribonucleotidyl coenzymes, catalytic RNA

Abstract

The concept of an RNA world is a hypothesis firmly rooted in empirical data and is part of a long and complex scientific perspective that goes back more than fifty years to the discovery of the central role RNA and ribonucleotides play in protein synthesis and biochemical reactions took place. As the understanding of RNA biology progressed, several independent proposals of protein-free primordial life forms were suggested. Although this possibility was strongly reinforced with the discovery of ribozymes, there are many definitions of the RNA world, including several contradictory ones. One could say that it was an early, perhaps primordial, stage during which RNA molecules played a much more conspicuous role in heredity and metabolism and, particularly, in the origin and early evolution of protein biosynthesis. The overwhelming evidence for the catalytic, regulatory, and structural properties of RNA molecules, combined with their ubiquity in cellular processes, can only be explained with the proposal that they played a key role in early evolution and perhaps in the origin of life itself.

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Author Biography

Antonio Lazcano, UNAM, Mexico City (Mexico).

Full Professor of the origin of life at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He is the author of scientific papers and books on the early stages of the evolution of life and has a long career in science communication in written media, radio, and television. He is the director of the Lynn Margulis Galapagos Centre. He was the President of the ISSOL twice and was made an Honorary Doctor by the universities of Milan, Valencia, and Michoacán. Since 2014, he has been a member of El Colegio Nacional, the highest cultural and scientific distinction in Mexico. His current research interests include the chemistry of the origin of life and the use of phylogenomic databases to reconstruct the early stages of cell evolution.  

References

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Published

2016-04-15

How to Cite

Lazcano, A. (2016). The RNA World: Piecing together the historical development of a hypothesis. Metode Science Studies Journal, (6), 167–173. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.6.5146
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Issue

Science grid: The public understanding of science (2016)

Section

On the origin of life. An incomplete scientific story

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