This project aims to build on recently discovered activation chemistry and shed some light on the origin of ribosomal peptide synthesis. A variety of ways to synthesise aminoacyl-RNAs under prebiotically plausible conditions will be investigated and the stability of these species will be explored under a range of conditions. Possible ways in which two aminoacyl-RNAs could be juxtaposed to facilitate peptidyl-RNA synthesis will be another major goal of the project. SELEX techniques will be deployed to achieve this goal. The third part of the project involves the origin of the decoding centre and the possibility that adaptation to a function other than translation drove its emergence. Throughout the project, clues about coding will be sought.

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References:

A. Mariani, D.A. Russell, T. Javelle, and J.D. Sutherland. (2018)
A Light-Releasable Potentially Prebiotic Nucleotide Activating Agent
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140, 8657-8661.