Journal ArticleDOI
A self-replicating peptide
TLDR
It is shown that a 32-residue α-helical peptide based on the leucine-zipper domain of the yeast transcription factor GCN4 can act autocatalytically in templating its own synthesis by accelerating the thioester-promoted amide-bond condensation of 15- and 17-residine fragments in neutral, dilute aqueous solutions.Abstract:
The production of amino acids and their condensation to polypeptides under plausibly prebiotic conditions have long been known. But despite the central importance of molecular self-replication in the origin of life, the feasibility of peptide self-replication has not been established experimentally. Here we report an example of a self-replicating peptide. We show that a 32-residue alpha-helical peptide based on the leucine-zipper domain of the yeast transcription factor GCN4 can act autocatalytically in templating its own synthesis by accelerating the thioester-promoted amide-bond condensation of 15- and 17-residue fragments in neutral, dilute aqueous solutions. The self-replication process displays parabolic growth pattern with the initial rates of product formation correlating with the square-foot of initial template concentration.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The complete genome sequence of the hyperthermophilic, sulphate-reducing archaeon Archaeoglobus fulgidus
Hans-Peter Klenk,Rebecca A. Clayton,Jean-Francois Tomb,Owen White,Karen E. Nelson,Karen A. Ketchum,Robert J. Dodson,Michelle Gwinn,Erin Hickey,Jeremy Peterson,Delwood Richardson,Anthony R. Kerlavage,David E. Graham,Nikos C. Kyrpides,Robert D. Fleischmann,John Quackenbush,Norman H. Lee,Granger G. Sutton,Steven R. Gill,Ewen F. Kirkness,Brian Dougherty,Keith McKenney,Mark Raymond Adams,Brendan J. Loftus,Scott N. Peterson,Claudia I. Reich,Leslie Klis McNeil,Jonathan H. Badger,Anna Glodek,Lixin Zhou,Ross Overbeek,Jeannine D. Gocayne,Janice Weidman,Lisa McDonald,Teresa Utterback,Matthew D. Cotton,Tracy Spriggs,Patricia Artiach,Brian P. Kaine,Sean M. Sykes,Paul W. Sadow,Kurt P. D'Andrea,Cheryl Bowman,Claire Fujii,Stacey Garland,Tanya Mason,Gary J. Olsen,Claire M. Fraser,Hamilton O. Smith,Carl R. Woese,J. Craig Venter +50 more
TL;DR: The A. fulgidus genome encodes functionally uncharacterized yet conserved proteins, two-thirds of which are shared with M. jannaschii (428 ORFs), indicating substantial archaeal gene diversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Programming biomolecular self-assembly pathways
TL;DR: Diverse molecular self-assembly and disassembly pathways are program using a ‘reaction graph’ abstraction to specify complementarity relationships between modular domains in a versatile DNA hairpin motif.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sequence-controlled polymers.
TL;DR: This work reviews the progress that has been made in making sequence-controlled polymers of increasing length and complexity and proposes some strategies for controlling sequences in chain-growth and step-growth polymerizations.
Journal ArticleDOI
The antiquity of RNA-based evolution
TL;DR: It is concluded that DNA- and protein-based life was preceded by a simpler life form based primarily on RNA, referred to as the 'RNA world', during which the genetic information resided in the sequence of RNA molecules and the phenotype derived from the catalytic properties of RNA.
MonographDOI
The Evolution of Language
TL;DR: The authors exploit newly available massive natu- ral language corpora to capture the language as a language evolution phenomenon. But their work is limited to a subset of the languages in the corpus.
References
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PatentDOI
Synthesis of proteins by native chemical ligation
TL;DR: The technique of native chemical ligation is employable for chemically synthesizing full length proteins as discussed by the authors, which are chemically identical to proteins produced by cell free synthesis, and can be refolded and/or oxidized to form native disulfide-containing protein molecules.
Journal ArticleDOI
Self-assembling organic nanotubes based on a cyclic peptide architecture
TL;DR: The design, synthesis and characterization of a new class of organic nanotubes based on rationally designed cyclic polypeptides are reported, which may have possible applications in inclusion chemistry, catalysis, molecular electronics and molecular separation technology.
Journal ArticleDOI
A switch between two-, three-, and four-stranded coiled coils in GCN4 leucine zipper mutants
TL;DR: These studies demonstrate that conserved, buried residues in the GCN4 leucine zipper direct dimer formation are essential determinants of the global fold.
Journal ArticleDOI
3D domain swapping: A mechanism for oligomer assembly
TL;DR: Examples of 3D domain swapping are reviewed that suggest domain swapping can serve as a mechanism for functional interconversion between monomers and oligomers, and that domain swapping may serve as the mechanism for evolution of some oligomeric proteins.
Journal ArticleDOI
Autocatalytic sets of proteins.
TL;DR: The main conclusions appear independent of the idealizations of the initial model, introduce a novel kind of parallel selection for peptides catalyzing connected sequences of reactions, depend upon a new kind of minimal critical complexity whose properties are definable, and suggest that the emergence of self replicating systems may be a self organizing collective property of critically complex protein systems in prebiotic evolution.