Summary
We have studied a number of condensation reactions involving ImpU, ImpT, ImpC, ImpA, ImpG, ImpUpG and ImpCpA as activated nucleotide donors and a variety of homo- and hetero-polynucleotides as templates. We did not obtain any evidence of a template effect with ImpU and ImpT, but observed some condensation of ImpC with GpG on appropriate templates. ImpA and ImpG take part in a number of more or less efficient template-directed reactions, as do ImpUpG and ImpCpA.
Our results suggest that, on the primitive Earth, pyrimidine nucleotides could most easily have been incorporated into polymers as constituents of short oligomers, which contained one or more purine nucleotide. The linkage of the product depends strongly on the nature of the substrates; the percentage of the natural 3′-5′-linkage was, in some cases, less than 10% and, in others, as high as 70%. Wobble-pairing was often very effective in promoting condensations, suggesting that transition mutations would have been very frequent in prebiotic polynucleotide replication.
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Abbreviations
- U:
-
uridine
- T:
-
thymidine
- C:
-
cytidine
- A:
-
adenosine
- G:
-
guanosine
- pN:
-
nucleoside-5′-phosphate
- Np:
-
a mixture of 2′- and 3′-phosphates of a nucleoside
- pNp:
-
a mixture of the 2′-5′-diphosphate and 3′-5′-diphosphate of a nucleoside
- N1 2 pN2 :
-
a 2′-5′-linked dinucleoside monophosphate
- N1 3 pN2 :
-
a 3′-5′-linked dinucleoside monophosphate
- N5 ppN:
-
a pyrophosphate derived from a nucleoside-5′-phosphate. ImpN and ImpN1pN2 are 5′-phosphorimidazolides of nucleosides and 3′-5′-linked dinucleoside monophosphates, respectively
- poly(N):
-
a homopolynucleotide
- poly (U1 C2 A4 G3):
-
a random copolymer derived from a substrate mixture containing U, C, A, G in ratio 1:2:4:3
- ODU:
-
optical density units measured at 260 nm
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Ninio, J., Orgel, L.E. Heteropolynucleotides as templates for non-enzymatic polymerizations. J Mol Evol 12, 91–99 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01733260
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01733260