Origins of the RNA-Protein World - Lost in Translation?, John Sutherland, Cambridge

John Sutherland
Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
"Origins of the RNA-Protein World - Lost in Translation?"
The RNA-protein double act at the heart of biology raises several intriguing origins questions that can be addressed by prebiotic chemistry. Beyond the obvious ‘which came first?’, one can also wonder about the extent to which chemistry shaped the process of translation according to the genetic code. In this lecture I will describe some mixed hydrogen cyanide-hydrogen sulfide chemistry that produces nucleotides and amino acids. Some degree of control is necessary for this ‘cyanosulfidic’ chemistry to proceed most efficiently and ways in which environmental factors could exercise this control will be suggested. Synergies in the assembly of nucleotide and amino acid building blocks into higher order structures will then be discussed as will experimental hints of a previously proposed second genetic code. Finally, it will be shown how the strength of codon-anticodon binding likely influenced the partial initial assignment of the primary genetic code.
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[@lethargogpeterson4083]

I understood less than half of this, but it is still interesting and gives me additional exposure to how our biological systems work in general. Thank you for posting it.

[@TonyTigerTonyTiger]

4:59 "Biology down" approaches to the origin of life. Or if you are James Tour, you never go down: you start at the top and stay there, and talk about modern eukaryotic cells - and even yeast interactomes - as though the origin of life involved them. Tour is so clueless about the origin of life that he thinks the first cells had nuclei, mitochondria, lysosomes, cytoskeletons with microtubules and actin/myosin filaments, phospholipid plasma membranes with genetically encoded proteins, ribosomes synthesizing polypeptides using tRNA, mRNA, and the "universal" genetic code, etc.

[@johannessievers6759]

amen :D

[@jimdandy9118]

Never understood the obsession of chemists to get to RNA when it’s too unstable to be an early form of DNA so worthless. Also, ribozyme chirality makes the ribozyme outside of a living cell irrelevant as well. I guess the whole pursuit creates careers but never actually does anything of substance.

[@aerx]

I mean sure, but at the same time its not about the "truth" of origin of life. That is a moot point. Even if you succed in bootstrapping evolution and "true life" from chemistry, you have only shown one way not the way. I see this kind of research as a way of doing basic research. I believe most of the different frameworks beeing pursued hold great potential for enhancing our knowledge and ultimately making everyones lives better.

[@jimdandy9118]

@@aerx I’m saying the whole abiogenesis scam is worthless. The simplest living cell capable of cell division to even begin evolution requires 473 genes, hundreds of proteins, a functional cell wall and a form of metabolism…..abiogenesis cannot get there and these guys know it. Worthless.

[@Thepicturelamp]

catabolism doesn't exist . great take

[@jimdandy9118]

@@Thepicturelamp Catabolism absolutely exists. No idea why you would bring that up since abiogenesis never gets to a metabolic pathway to break anything down.

[@Thepicturelamp]

@@jimdandy9118 just pointing out that recycling pathways are a huge part of biochemistry . Recycling pathways might be a late invention, or the synthetic logic of all (or some) of life may have been conserved from early nonenzymatic reaction pathways. The idea that RNA is prebiotically undesirable because it self-cleaves is silly because that might be exactly why you would want it prebiotically