NDLI: `Reverse Chemical Evolution': A New Method to Search for Thermally Stable Biopolymers

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Mitsuzawa, Shigebu Yukawa, Tetsuyuki
Copyright Year	2003
Abstract	The primitive sea on Earth may have had high-temperature and high-pressure conditions similar to those in present-day hydrothermal environments. If life originated in the hot sea, thermal stability of the constituent molecules would have been necessary. Thus far, however, it has been reported that biopolymers hydrolyze too rapidly to support life at temperatures of more than 200 °C. We herein propose a novel approach, called reverse chemical evolution, to search for biopolymers notably more stable against thermal decomposition than previously reported. The essence of the approach is that hydrolysis of a protein or functional RNA (m-, t-, r-RNA) at high temperature and high pressure simulating the ancient sea environment may yield thermally stable peptides or RNAs at higher concentrations than other peptides or RNAs. An experimental test hydrolyzing bovine ribonuclease A in aqueous solution at 205 °C and 25 MPa yielded three prominently stable molecules weighing 859, 1030 and 695 Da. They are thermally some tens or hundreds times more stable than a polyglycine of comparable mass. Sequence analyses of the 859- and 1030-Da molecules revealed that they are a heptapeptide and its homologue, respectively, elongated by two amino acids at the N-terminal region, originally embedded as residues 112–120 in the protein. They consist mainly of hydrophobic amino acids.
Starting Page	163
Ending Page	171
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01696149
Journal	Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
Volume Number	33
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	15730875
Language	English
Publisher	Kluwer Academic Publishers
Publisher Date	2003-01-01
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Organic Chemistry Geochemistry Biochemistry
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Space and Planetary Science

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