Life is that which evolves. Living systems are the products of evolutionary processes and
can undergo further evolution. A crucial question for the origin of life is the following: when …

Figure 2. Amine-linked DNA product formation. Reaction conditions: 1 mM in trimers dCGT-
CHO (A) and H2N-dTGC (B) and 1 mM tetramer H2N-dTTTT (C) and/or template dGCAACG …

The rate constants for the condensation reaction of the 5'-phosphorimidazolide of adenosine
(ImpA) to form dinucleotides and oligonucleotides havebeen measuredin the presence of …

The emergence of evermore complex entities from prebiotic building blocks is a key aspect
of origins of life research. The RNA-world hypothesis posits that RNA oligomers known as …

We have prepared hairpin oligonucleotidesin which a 5'-terminal single-strandedsegment
contains cytidylate (C) and guanylate (G) residues. When these hairpin substrates are …

Human growth hormone was expressed in transgenic tobacco seeds using the monocot
tissue-specific promoter from sorghum γ-kafirin seed storage protein gene. During tobacco …

During the origin of life, the biological information of nucleic acid polymers must have
increased to encode functional molecules (the RNA world). Ribozymes tend to be …

The RNA world is one of the principal hypotheses to explain the emergence of living
systems on the prebiotic Earth. It posits that RNA oligonucleotides acted as both carriers of …

Magnesium, an ion necessary in enzymatic as well as in nonenzymatic template-directed
polynucleotide-synthesizing reactions, has been found to catalyze the hydroxide ion attack …

Reviewed are the latest achievements in studying the information transfer mechanisms and
the evolutionary significance of prebiotic RNA synthesis, the double helix structures most …