Amino Acids as Molecular Linchpins in the Fundamental Prebiotic Processes of RNA Copying and Vesicle Formation

Abstract

In addition to being delivered via exogenous means (e.g., chondritic meteorites and comets), amino acids are hypothesized to have been present on early Earth via Urey–Miller-type abiotic processes. They conceivably coexisted in the primordial soup with nucleotides/RNA, amphiphiles and other co-solutes, highlighting the importance of characterizing how they would have influenced relevant prebiotic processes. In previous studies, amino acids have been shown to interact with protocellular moieties and affect nucleotide oligomerization. Nonetheless, the outcome of such interactions on templated-RNA replication, and on the physicochemical properties of protocells made of single-chain amphiphiles, is largely unknown. In this work, we characterize the role of amino acids as crucial prebiotic co-solutes in RNA copying chemistry. Additionally, we show how amino acids can promote the self-assembly of fatty acid vesicles under suboptimal pH conditions. Overall, our results show that amino acids influence both information copying and compartmentalization, underscoring their importance in shaping the molecular pathways crucial to life’s origin. In all, this study highlights how interactions between early biomolecular systems would have affected their co-evolution, thus setting the stage for the transition of chemistry to biology on early Earth.