Adding a new perspective to the origin of life here on Earth, Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, an Indian-national scientist from California-based Scripps Research, has revealed the latest discovery showing that a DNA-RNA combination started the first life form on this planet.
Presenting what he recently discovered, Krishnamurthy showed that a diamidophosphate or DAP, a simple compound that possibly existed on Earth prior to life's occurrence, could have "chemically knitted together tiny DNA building blocks" also known as deoxynucleosides "into strands of primordial DNA."
According to INDA New England News, newly found and presented chemical reactions could have formed DNA building blocks prior to the forming of life, as well as the existence of enzymes.
A new study showed that a diamidophosphate or DAP, a simple compound that possibly existed on Earth prior to life’s occurrence, could have ‘chemically knitted together tiny DNA building blocks’ also known as deoxynucleosides ‘into strands of primordial DNA.’
Study Finding
The study finding, published in Angewandte Chemie chemistry journal, is the newest in a series of discoveries referring to the probability that DNA, as well as its close chemical cousin, arose together as results of akin chemical reactions. It states that the first self-duplicating molecules, the original forms of life on Earth, were combinations of two.
Krishnamurthy, the study's senior author and associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research explained, the study findings are an essential step towards the development of a detailed chemical framework of the manner the first life is forming originated on this planet.
Specifically, such a discovery resulted in more extensive research of the manner self-duplicating DNA-RNA combination could have progressed and spread on prehistoric Earth and eventually seeded the more advanced biology of contemporary organisms.
DNA and RNA Creation
DNA and RNA, for instance, in the "PCR" approach that underlies testing for COVID-19, amounts to an enormous global business, although depending on enzymes that are comparatively fragile and therefore, have a lot of limitations.
Vigorous, zero-enzyme chemical methods for creating DNA and RNA may turn out to being more attractive in a lot of contexts, said Krishnamurthy.
A team lead by Krishnamurthy reported in 2017 that the organic compound DAP could have been a great contributor and played a vital role in changing ribonucleosides and winding them together into the original RNA strands.
This new research presents that DAP in the same conditions could have done similarly for DNA. Now that it has been better understood, the manner a prehistoric chemistry could have made the original RNAs and DNAs, the lead author said, they could start "using it on mixes of 'ribonucleoside and deoxynucleoside building blocks' to find out" which chimeric molecules are created. More so, they used the mixes to see if they could self-replicate and eventually evolve.
'Chimeric' Molecular Strands
The research team has presented that chimeric molecular strands that are partly DNA and partly RNA may have been able to address the problem as they can pattern corresponding strands in a less-sticky manner that that enables them to easily separate.
Referring to various papers in this framework, the group explained that the ribonucleoside and deoxynucleoside building blocks of the RNA and DNA, respectively, could have appeared under "very similar chemical conditions on the early Earth."
Eddy Jimenez, the study's first author and a postdoctoral research associate in the Krishnamurthy laboratory, they found, to their surprise, that using DAP to respond with deoxynucleosides works more effectively when the latter are not all similar but are rather mixes of various DNA 'letters' like A and T, or G and C like actual DNA.
ALSO READ: Here's How Humans Are Still Evolving
Check out more news and information on Human Evolution on Science Times.