Reciprocal Nucleopeptides as the Ancestral Darwinian Self-Replicator

TL;DR

This paper proposes that reciprocal nucleopeptides could have been the first self-replicating entities, providing a plausible model for the emergence of life and the origin of DNA and genetic coding.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model of reciprocal nucleopeptides as the simplest self-replicators capable of evolution, unifying multiple hypotheses about life's origins.

Findings

Nucleopeptide systems can autocatalytically replicate and evolve.

The model links peptide catalysis with nucleic acid templating.

Provides a plausible pathway for the emergence of DNA and genetic code.

Abstract

Even the simplest organisms are too complex to have spontaneously arisen fully-formed, yet precursors to first life must have emerged ab initio from their environment. A watershed event was the appearance of the first entity capable of evolution: the Initial Darwinian Ancestor. Here we suggest that nucleopeptide reciprocal replicators could have carried out this important role and contend that this is the simplest way to explain extant replication systems in a mathematically consistent way. We propose short nucleic-acid templates on which amino-acylated adapters assembled. Spatial localization drives peptide ligation from activated precursors to generate phosphodiester-bond-catalytic peptides. Comprising autocatalytic protein and nucleic acid sequences, this dynamical system links and unifies several previous hypotheses and provides a plausible model for the emergence of DNA and the operational code.