The general notion of an “RNA world” is that, in the early development of life on the Earth,
genetic continuity was assured by the replication of RNA, and RNA molecules were the chief …

Living and proliferating cells undergo repeated cycles of growth, replication and division, all
orchestrated by complex molecular networks. How a minimal cell cycle emerged and helped …

One of science's greatest challenges is determining how life can spontaneously emerge
from a mixture of molecules. A complicating factor is that life and its molecules are inherently …

The importance of autocatalysis spans from practical applications such as in chemically
amplified photoresists, to autocatalysis playing a fundamental role in evolution as well as a …

This Perspective focuses on RNA in biological and nonbiological compartments resulting
from liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS), with an emphasis on origins of life. In extant …

Achieving efficient nonenzymatic replication of RNA is an important step toward the
synthesis of self-replicating protocells that may mimic early forms of life. Despite recent …

Nonenzymatic template-directed RNA copying using chemically activated nucleotides is
thought to have played a key role in the emergence of genetic information on the early Earth …

An RNA polymerase ribozyme that was obtained by directed evolution can propagate a
functional RNA through repeated rounds of replication and selection, thereby enabling …

The sequence of events that gave rise to the first life on our planet took place in the Earth's
deep past, seemingly forever beyond our reach. Perhaps for that very reason the idea of …

Hypotheses of the origins of RNA and DNA are generally centred on the prebiotic synthesis
of a pristine system (pre-RNA or RNA), which gives rise to its descendent. However, a lack of …