Chemical evolution of RNA under hydrothermal conditions and the role of thermal copolymers of amino acids for the prebiotic degradation and formation of RNA Original Research Article

The roles of thermal copolymers of amino acids (TCAA) were studied for the prebiotic degradation of RNA. A weak catalytic ability of TCAA consisted of Glu, l-Ala, l-Val, l-Glu, l-Asp, and optionally l-His was detected for the cleavage of the ribose phosphodiester bond of a tetranucleotide (5′-dCrCdGdG) in aqueous solution at 80 °C. The rate constants of the disappearance of 5′-dCrCdGdG were determined in aqueous solutions using different pH buffer and TCAA. The degradation rates were enhanced 1.3–3.0 times in the presence of TCAA at pH 7.5 and 8.0 at 80 °C, while the hydrolysis of oligoguanylate (oligo(G)) was accelerated about 1.6 times at pH 8.0. A weak inhibitory activity for the cleavage of oligo(G) was detected in the presence of 0.055 M TCAA-Std. On the other hand, our recent study on the influences of TCAA for the template-directed reaction of oligo(G) on a polycytidylic acid template showed that TCAA has an acceleration activity for the degradation of the activated nucleotide monomer and an acceleration activity for the formation of G5′ ppG capped oligo(G). This series of studies suggest that efficient and selective catalytic or inhibitory activities for either the degradation or formation of RNA under hydrothermal conditions could have hardly emerged from the simple thermal condensation products of amino acids. A scenario is going to be deduced on the chemical evolution of enzymatic activities and RNA molecules concerning hydrothermal earth conditions.