Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 8: Posters: Proteins

BP 8.25: Poster

Monday, March 11, 2013, 17:30–19:30, Poster B2

Thermal, Autonomous Replicator Made from Transfer RNA — Hubert Krammer, •Friederike M. Möller, and Dieter Braun — Systems Biophysics, Physics Department, Center for Nanoscience, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, Amalienstrasse 54, 80799 München, Germany

Evolving systems rely on the storage and replication of genetic information. Here we present an autonomous, purely thermally driven replication mechanism. A pool of hairpin molecules, derived from transfer RNA replicates the succession of a two-letter code. Energy is first stored thermally in metastable hairpins. Thereafter, energy is released by a highly specific and exponential replication with a duplication time of 30 s, which is much faster than the tendency to produce false positives in the absence of template. Our experiments propose a physical rather than a chemical scenario for the autonomous replication of protein encoding information in a disequilibrium setting.