Uma ribozima de transcriptase reversa vai salvar o mundo RNA???

quarta-feira, outubro 04, 2017

A reverse transcriptase ribozyme

Gerald F Joyce, Biswajit Samanta

The Salk Institute, United States

SHORT REPORT Sep 26, 2017

CITE AS: eLife 2017;6:e31153 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.31153



Abstract

A highly evolved RNA polymerase ribozyme was found to also be capable of functioning as a reverse transcriptase, an activity that has never been demonstrated before for RNA. This activity is thought to have been crucial for the transition from RNA to DNA genomes during the early history of life on Earth, when it similarly could have arisen as a secondary function of an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. The reverse transcriptase ribozyme can incorporate all four dNTPs and can generate products containing up to 32 deoxynucleotides. It is likely that this activity could be improved through evolution, ultimately enabling the synthesis of complete DNA genomes. DNA is much more stable compared to RNA and thus provides a larger and more secure repository for genetic information.

Article and author information

Author details

Gerald F Joyce

The Salk Institute, La Jolla, United States

For correspondence gjoyce@salk.edu

Competing interests The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

ORCID icon 0000-0003-0603-2874

Biswajit Samanta

The Salk Institute, La Jolla, United States

Competing interests The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX14AK15G)

Gerald F Joyce

Simons Foundation (287624)

Gerald F Joyce

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

Andrew D Ellington, Reviewing Editor, University of Texas at Austin, United States

Publication history

Received: August 10, 2017 Accepted: September 26, 2017

Accepted Manuscript published: September 26, 2017 (version 1)

Copyright

© 2017, Joyce & Samanta

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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