Primordial RNA Replication and Applications in PCR Technology

TL;DR

This paper explores how primordial RNA could have formed in hydrothermal vents, using interdisciplinary methods, and proposes a PCR-like process with potential applications in modern biotechnology.

Contribution

It introduces a physical and computational model for RNA formation in hydrothermal vents and suggests a biomimicry application to improve PCR technology.

Findings

Hydrothermal vents could facilitate RNA self-assembly.

PCR-like reactions are plausible under prebiotic conditions.

Optimal temperature profiles can be modeled computationally.

Abstract

The emergence of self-replication and information transmission in life's origin remains unexplained despite extensive research on the topic. A hypothesis explaining the transition from a simple organic world to a complex RNA world is offered here based on physical factors in hydrothermal vent systems. An interdisciplinary approach is taken using techniques from thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, oceanography, statistical mechanics, and stochastic processes to examine nucleic acid dynamics and kinetics in a hydrothermal vent from first principles. Analyses are carried out using both analytic and computational methods and confirm the plausibility of a reaction involving the PCR-like assembly of ribonucleotides. The proposal is put into perspective with established theories on the origin of life and more generally the onset of order and information transmission in prebiotic systems. A biomimicry application of this hypothetical process to PCR technology is suggested and its viability is evaluated in a rigorous logical analysis. Optimal temperature curves begin to be established using Monte Carlo simulation, variational calculus, and Fourier analysis. The converse argument is also made but qualitatively, asserting that the success of such a modification to PCR would in turn reconfirm the biological theory.