RNA world hypothesis

The hypothesis that early life used RNA both to store genetic information and to catalyze chemical reactions, before DNA and proteins assumed most of those roles.

Ribozymes: RNA molecules that catalyze specific chemical reactions. They demonstrate that RNA can perform catalytic work usually associated with proteins.
Walter Gilbert: A molecular biologist who introduced the phrase “RNA world” in a 1986 essay. His naming of the RNA world gave the hypothesis its familiar label.
Nucleotide: A molecular unit composed of a sugar, phosphate group, and nitrogenous base. Nucleotides are the building blocks from which RNA chains must arise.
Prebiotic synthesis of RNA: Research on chemical routes that could produce RNA or its components under early-Earth conditions. A feasible route to RNA remains central to whether the proposed world could begin.
RNA replication: The copying of RNA sequences using RNA as a template. Heritable RNA copying is needed for an RNA-based system to evolve.
Thomas Cech: An American biochemist who discovered self-splicing RNA in Tetrahymena. His discovery showed that RNA can catalyze reactions without protein enzymes.
Prebiotic chemistry: Chemical reactions that could occur before life and produce compounds relevant to its emergence. It addresses whether RNA’s ingredients and precursors could form without organisms.
RNA degradation: The breakdown of RNA molecules through chemical or enzymatic reactions. RNA’s chemical fragility challenges the persistence of early genetic information.
RNA world: A proposed stage of early evolution in which RNA was central to heredity and catalysis. This names the hypothesized biological stage whose existence the hypothesis proposes.
Sidney Altman: A Canadian-American molecular biologist who demonstrated RNA catalysis by RNase P. His work independently established that RNA can have enzymatic activity.

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