Composition of the Desoxypentose Nucleic Acids of Four Genera of Sea-Urchin

Chargaff, Erwin; Lipshitz, Rakoma; Green, Charlotte

doi:10.1016/s0021-9258(19)50884-5

Cited by 80 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Chargaff et al ( 1952 ) first stated that the molar G/Cy and Ad/Th ratios in the DNA double helixes are equal to unity. Then, Crick and Watson ( 1954 ) used this discovery when formulating the DNA double-helix structure.…”

Section: The Life Origination Hydrate Theory (Loh-theory)mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Minerals to Simplest Living Matter: Life Origination Hydrate Theory

Kadyshevich

Ostrovskii

2023

Acta Biotheor

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Long since, people tried to solve the mystery of the way that led to the appearance and propagation of living entities. However, no harmonious understanding of this mystery existed, because neither the scientifically grounded source minerals nor the ambient conditions were proposed and because it was groundlessly taken that the process of living matter origination is endothermal. The Life Origination Hydrate Theory (LOH-Theory) first suggests the chemical way capable of leading from the specified abundant natural minerals to origination of multitudes of multitudes of simplest living entities and gives an original explanation for the phenomena of chirality and racemization delay. The LOH-Theory covers the period up to origination of the genetic code. The LOH-Theory is grounded on the following three discoveries based on the available information and on the results of our experimental works performed using original instrumentation and computer simulations. (1) There is the only one triad of natural minerals applicable for exothermal thermodynamically possible chemical syntheses of simplest living-matter components. (2) N-base, ribose, and phosphdiester radicals and nucleic acids as whole are size-compatible with structural gas-hydrate cavities. (3) The gas-hydrate structure arises around amido-groups in cooled undisturbed systems consisting of water and highly-concentrated functional polymers with amido-groups.The natural conditions and historic periods favorable for simplest living matter origination are revealed. The LOH-Theory is supported by results of observations, biophysical and biochemical experiments, and wide application of original three-dimensional and two-dimensional computer simulations of biochemical structures within gas-hydrate matrix. The instrumentation and procedures for experimental verification of the LOH-Theory are suggested. If future experiments are successful, they, possibly, could be the first step on the way to industrial synthesis of food from minerals, i.e., to execution of the work that is performed by plants. Graphical Abstract

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Section: The Life Origination Hydrate Theory (Loh-theory)mentioning

confidence: 99%

From Minerals to Simplest Living Matter: Life Origination Hydrate Theory

Kadyshevich

Ostrovskii

2023

Acta Biotheor

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“…The complementarity between nucleotides underlies base pairing which would seem obvious when considering double stranded sequences [27]. However, before the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick, one of the main clues leading to this discovery was the observation by Erwin Chargaff that in natural DNA sequences, A and T were always at a 1:1 ratio while G and C were also in a 1:1 ratio [28][29][30]. This observation commonly known as Chargaff's first parity rule would seem trivial in hindsight because of knowledge of base-pairing.…”

Section: Triplet Code Network Recapitulates Symmetries In Genomic Dna Single-strands (Chargaff's Second Parity Rule)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomes contain relics of a triplet code connecting the origins of primordial RNA synthesis to the origins of genetically coded protein synthesis

Siwo

2021

Preprint

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Life on earth relies on three types of information polymers-DNA, RNA and proteins. In all organisms and viruses, these molecules are synthesized by the copying of pre-existing templates. A triplet-based code known as the genetic code guides the synthesis of proteins by complex enzymatic machines that decode genetic information in RNA sequences. The origin of the genetic code is one of the most fundamental questions in biology. In this study, computational analysis of about 5,000 species level metagenomes using techniques for the analysis of human language suggests that the genomes of extant organisms contain relics of a distinct triplet code that potentially predates the genetic code. This code defines the relationship between adjacent triplets in DNA/RNA sequences, whereby these triplets predominantly differ by a single base. Furthermore, adjacent triplets encode amino acids that are thought to have emerged around the same period in the earth’s early history. The results suggest that the order of triplets in primordial RNA sequences was associated with the availability of specific amino acids, perhaps due to a coupling of a triplet-based primordial RNA synthesis mechanism to a primitive mechanism of peptide bond formation. Together, this coupling could have given rise to early nucleic acid sequences and a system for encoding amino acid sequences in RNA, i.e. the genetic code. Thus, the central role of triplets in biology potentially extends to the primordial world, contributing to both the origins of genomes and the origins of genetically coded protein synthesis.SignificanceOne of the most intriguing discoveries in biology is that the order of amino acids in each protein is determined by the order of nucleotides (commonly represented by the letters A, U, G, C) in a biological molecule known as RNA. The genetic code serves as a dictionary that maps each of the 64 triplets ‘words’ in RNA to the 20 amino acids, thereby specifying how information encoded in RNA is decoded into sequences of amino acids (i.e., proteins). The deciphering of the genetic code was one of the greatest discoveries of the 20th century (1968 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology) and is central to modern molecular biology. Yet, how it came to be that the order of triplets in RNA encodes the sequence of the protein synthesized remains one of the most important enigmas of biology. Paradoxically, in all life forms proteins cannot be synthesized without RNA and RNA itself cannot also be synthesized without proteins, presenting a chicken and egg dilemma. By analyzing thousands of microbial genomes using approaches drawn from the field of natural language processing, this study finds that the order of triplets across genomes contains relics of an ancient triplet code, distinct from but closely connected to the genetic code. Unlike the genetic code which specifies the relationship between information in RNA and the sequence of proteins, this ancient code describes the relationship between adjacent triplets in extant genome sequences, whereby such triplets are often different from each other by a single letter. Triplets that are closely related by this ancient code encode amino acids that are thought to have emerged around the same period in the earth’s early history. In other words, a fossil record of the chronological order of appearance of amino acids on early earth appears written in genome sequences. This potentially demonstrates that the process by which RNA sequences were synthesized in the primordial world relied on triplets and was coupled to amino acids available at the time. Hence, the connections between primordial RNA synthesis and a primitive mechanism for linking amino acids to form peptides could have enabled one type of molecule (RNA) to code for the other (protein), facilitating the emergence of the genetic code.

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“…Between 1951 and 1952, Erwin Chargaff of Columbia, NY, had measured the base compositions of DNA from different tissues and creatures. He found that different species may have different base compositions, but that each contained equimolar amounts of purines and of pyrimidines, with approximate molar equivalences of As and Ts, and of Gs and Cs (Chargaff et al 1952). The proposed DNA structure implied that these ratios are exactly 1.…”

Section: Protein Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Francis Harry Compton Crick OM. 8 June 1916 — 28 July 2004

Bretscher

2017

Biogr. Mems Fell. R. Soc.

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The first half of the twentieth century saw a profound change in our understanding of the chemistry underlying biology. We came to learn in detail how the small molecules upon which life is based are interconverted by specific enzymes, a web which increased in complexity and became modern biochemistry. Intellectually, a quite separate development—molecular biology—arose from physicists and chemists studying the structure of proteins with X-rays, and biologists studying viruses that infect bacteria. Its intellectual thrust was to discover how information in genes is expressed and controlled. This led to a revolution in our understanding of biology, and no person was more influential in shaping and guiding this emerging field than Francis Crick.

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Composition of the Desoxypentose Nucleic Acids of Four Genera of Sea-Urchin

Cited by 80 publications

References 9 publications

From Minerals to Simplest Living Matter: Life Origination Hydrate Theory

From Minerals to Simplest Living Matter: Life Origination Hydrate Theory

Genomes contain relics of a triplet code connecting the origins of primordial RNA synthesis to the origins of genetically coded protein synthesis

Francis Harry Compton Crick OM. 8 June 1916 — 28 July 2004

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