Non-enzymatic recombination of RNA: Ligation in loops (original) (raw)

2018, Biochimica et biophysica acta

While the RNA world hypothesis is widely accepted, it is still far from complete: the existence of self-replicating ribozyme, consisting of potentially hundreds of nucleotides, is a core assumption for the majority of RNA world models. The appearance of such long RNA molecules under prebiotic conditions is not self-evident. Recombination seems to be a plausible way of creating RNA diversity, resulting in the appearance of functional RNAs, capable of self-replicating. We report here on the study of recombination process modelled with two 96 nts RNA fragments. Detection of recombination products was performed with RT-PCR followed by TA-cloning and Sanger sequencing. A wide range of recombinant products was detected. We found that (i) the most efficient ligation was observed for RNA species forming bulges or internal loops, with ligation partners located within the loop; (ii) a strong preference was observed for formation of a few types of major products with a large variety of minor p...