ABOVE: A primordial version of RNA might have incorporated inosine, a derivative of adenosine, in place of guanosine.
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The paper
S.C. Kim et al., “Inosine, but none of the 8-oxo-purines, is a plausible component of a primordial version of RNA,” PNAS, 115:13318–23, 2018.
Proponents of the RNA world theory argue that life on Earth originated from a mixture of self-replicating, information-storing molecules. But while researchers have discovered ways that RNA’s pyrimidine nucleosides, uridine and cytidine, could have formed in primordial conditions, they’ve had less success with the purine nucleosides adenosine and guanosine, casting the theory into doubt.
Biologist Jack Szostak’s lab at Harvard Medical School recently set out to test a new hypothesis: that compounds called 8-oxo-purines could have acted as substitutes for modern purines in primordial RNA. His team used an adenosine derivative, inosine, as a control.
Under early-Earth conditions, 8-oxo-purines turned out to perform poorly—RNA molecules containing ...
