Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 49: Physics of the Genesis of Life - Focus Session organized by Moritz Kreysing and Dieter Braun

BP 49.6: Talk

Thursday, March 23, 2017, 11:15–11:30, SCH A251

Eutectic phase of water-ice as medium for the early RNA world — •Hannes Mutschler¹ and Phil Holliger² — ¹Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany — ²MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK

There is strong evidence for a primordial biology, in which RNA was the central biomolecule responsible information storage and catalysis. One of the key questions of this "RNA world" hypothesis is: Which environment might have been sufficiently benign to allow formation and evolution of inherently instable RNA molecules creating ever more complex catalysts including self-replicating ribozymes? We investigate the crowding environment of the eutectic phase of water-ice as a potential medium hosting the early RNA world. We found that eutectic conditions allow derivatives of primitive, naturally occurring ribozymes to efficiently catalyse entropically disfavoured RNA polymerisation and ligation reactions using only very weakly activated but credible building blocks as substrate. We also find that cyclic freeze-thaw cycling is a potent driver of RNA assembly and critical to unlocking the full functional potential of short RNA ligase modules through an unanticipated RNA chaperone effect.