标题：OPEN QUESTIONS IN ORIGIN OF LIFE: EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON THE ORIGIN OF NUCLEIC ACIDS AND PROTEINS WITH SPECIFIC AND FUNCTIONAL SEQUENCES BY A CHEMICAL SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY APPROACH
期刊名称：Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal
印刷版ISSN：2001-0370
出版年度：2014
卷号：9
期号：14
DOI：10.5936/csbj.201402004
语种：
出版社：Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal
摘要：In this mini-review we present some experimental approaches to the important issue in the origin of life, namely the origin of nucleic acids and proteins with specific and functional sequences. The formation of macromolecules on prebiotic Earth faces practical and conceptual difficulties. From the chemical viewpoint, macromolecules are formed by chemical pathways leading to the condensation of building blocks (amino acids, or nucleotides) in long-chain copolymers (proteins and nucleic acids, respectively). The second difficulty deals with a conceptual problem, namely with the emergence of specific sequences among a vast array of possible ones, the huge “sequence space”, leading to the question “why these macromolecules, and not the others?”
关键词：fragment condensation ; organocatalysis ; origin of life ; random proteins ; random RNA ; sequence space ; Ser-His
