Observations and perspectives on the prebiotic sequence evolution

TL;DR

This paper explores the origin and evolution of the genetic code and early life through a prebiotic triplex nucleic acid model, linking codon distributions, stability of triplex base pairs, and coevolution of genetic components.

Contribution

It introduces a novel triplex nucleic acid-based theory for the origin of the genetic code and early life, supported by experimental data and statistical analysis.

Findings

Relationship between codon distribution and the tree of life

Proposed triplex nucleic acid model for genetic code origin

Testable hypotheses on early sequence evolution

Abstract

The post-genomic era has brought opportunities to bridge traditionally separate fields of early history of life and brought new insight into origin and evolution of biodiversity. According to distributions of codons in genome sequences, I found a relationship between the genetic code and the tree of life. This remote and profound relationship involves the origin and evolution of the genetic code and the diversification and expansion of genomes. Here, a prebiotic picture of the triplex nucleic acid evolution is proposed to explain the origin of the genetic code, where the transition from disorder to order in the origin of life might be due to the increasing stabilities of triplex base pairs. The codon degeneracy can be obtained in detail based on the coevolution of the genetic code with amino acids, or equivalently, the coevolution of tRNAs with aaRSs. This theory is based on experimental data such as the stability of triplex base pairs and the statistical features of genomic codon distributions. Several experimentally testable proposals have been developed. This study should be regarded as an exploratory attempt to reveal the early evolution of life based on sequence information in a statistical manner.