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

Autores/as

  • Antonio Lazcano UNAM, Mexico City

DOI:

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

Palabras clave:

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

Resumen

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.

Descargas

Los datos de descargas todavía no están disponibles.

Biografía del autor/a

Antonio Lazcano, UNAM, Mexico City

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 is Honorary Doctor by the universities of Milan, Valencia and Michoacán. Since 2014, he is 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 early stages of cell evolution.

Citas

Bada, J. L., & Lazcano, A. (2003). Prebiotic soup: Revisiting the Miller experiment. Science, 300, 745–746. doi: 10.1126/science.1085145

Belozerskii A. N. (1959). On species specificity of nucleic acids in bacteria. In A. I. Oparin, A. G. Pasynskii, A. E. Braunshetin, & T. E. Pavloskaya (Eds.), The origin of life on Earth (pp. 322–331). New York: Pergamon Press/MacMillan Company.

Brachet, J. (1959). Les acides nucléiques et l’origine des proteins. In A. I. Oparin, A. G. Pasynskii, A. E. Braunshetin, & T. E. Pavloskaya (Eds.), The origin of life on Earth (pp. 361–367). New York: Pergamon Press/MacMillan Company.

Crick F. H. C. (1968). The origin of the genetic code. Journal of Molecular Biology, 39, 367–379.

Eakin, R. E. (1963). An approach to the evolution of metabolism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 49, 360–366. Gilbert, W. (1986). The RNA World. Nature, 319, 618. doi: 10.1038/319618a0

Handler, P. (1963). Evolution of the coenzymes. In A. I. Oparin (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of Biochemistry, Vol. III. Biochemistry (pp. 149–157). New York: Pergamon Press/Macmillan Company.

Lazcano, A. (2012). The biochemical roots of the RNA world: From zymonucleic acid to ribozymes. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 34, 407–424.

Maurel, M. C., & Ninio, J. (1987). Catalysis by a prebiotic nucleotide analog of histidine. Biochimie, 69, 551–553.

Oparin, A. I. (1938). The origin of life. New York: MacMillan.

Oparin, A. I., Pasynskii, A. G., Braunshetin, A. E., & Pavloskaya, T. E. (Eds.). (1959). The origin of life on Earth. New York: Pergamon Press/MacMillan Company.

Orgel, L. E. (1968). Evolution of the genetic apparatus. Journal of Molecular Biology, 38, 381–393.

Orgel, L. E., & Sulston, J.E. (1971). Polynucleotide replication and the origin of life. In A. P. Kimball, & J. Oró (Eds.), Prebiotic and biochemical evolution (pp. 89–94). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Rich, A. (1962). On the problems of evolution and biochemical information transfer. In M. Kasha, & B. Pullman (Eds.), Horizons in biochemistry (pp. 103–126). New York: Academic Press.

White III, H. B. (1976). Coenzymes as fossils of an earlier metabolic state. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 7, 101–104.

Woese, C. R. (1967). The Genetic Code: The molecular basis for gene expression. New York: Harper and Row.

Descargas

Publicado

15-04-2016

Cómo citar

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
Metrics
Vistas/Descargas
  • Resumen
    1821
  • PDF
    679

Número

Artículos en línea - Abril 2015

Sección

On the origin of life. An incomplete scientific story

Licencia

Todos los documentos incluidos en OJS son de acceso libre y propiedad de sus autores.

Los autores que publican en esta revista están de acuerdo con los siguientes términos:

  1. Los autores conservan los derechos de autor y garantizan a Metode Science Studies Journal el derecho a la primera publicación del trabajo, licenciado bajo una  licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional, que permite a otros compartir el trabajo con un reconocimiento de la autoría del trabajo y citando la publicación inicial en esta revista.
  2. Se permite y se anima a los autores a difundir sus trabajos electrónicamente a través de páginas personales e institucionales (repositorios institucionales, páginas web personales o perfiles a redes profesionales o académicas) una vez publicado el trabajo.

Métrica

Artículos similares

> >> 

También puede Iniciar una búsqueda de similitud avanzada para este artículo.