{"id":102048,"date":"2025-08-28T00:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T00:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/102048\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T00:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T00:42:08","slug":"scientists-discover-chemical-missing-link-that-might-explain-origins-of-life-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/102048\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists discover chemical \u2018missing link\u2019 that might explain origins of life on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists may have discovered a reaction that provides the \u201cmissing link\u201d to help explain how early life formed on Earth<\/a> about 4 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

All living things<\/a> contain ribonucleic acid, otherwise known as RNA<\/a>, a core molecule that serves crucial functions in organisms like decoding genetic information and helping build proteins from simpler amino acids.<\/p>\n

However, the process of RNA attaching to amino acids, RNA aminoacylation, has never been experimentally observed in conditions matching the early Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a study published Wednesday in Nature<\/a>, a team of University College London researchers describes an experiment that allowed them to link amino acids to RNA in water in a neutral PH environment reminiscent of conditions around the time life was thought to have formed on Earth.<\/p>\n

By attaching amino acids to a sulphur-bearing chemical group called a thioester, another compound found on the early Earth, the scientists observed the molecules react spontaneously and selectively with RNA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Researchers<\/p>\n

Researchers demonstrated in lab a possible reaction explaining how RNA and amino acids became chemically linked on the early Earth, a necessary step in the formation of self-replicating life forms<\/p>\n

The natural structure of the RNA even helped guide the amino acids to the end of the RNA strand, the location where they would need to be for eventual protein synthesis.<\/p>\n

\u201cRNA molecules communicate information between themselves in a highly predictable and extremely effective way, but RNAs do not inherently communicate with the amino acids that they need to control in protein synthesis,\u201d Professor Matthew Powner, a senior author of the study, told<\/a> BBC Science Focus. \u201cSo how and why these two molecules first came to be linked has been an open and unresolved question for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers said their work helped bridge two different theories for the origin of life on Earth, known as \u201cRNA world\u201d and \u201cthioester world,\u201d each named for the compound adherents argued first set off life-forming processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found, which is kind of cool, is that if you put them both together, they’re more than the sum of their parts,\u201d Powner said<\/a> in a separate interview with 404 Media. \u201cBoth aspects\u2014RNA world and thioester world\u2014might be right and they\u2019re not mutually exclusive. They can both work together to provide different aspects of things that are essential to building a cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previous attempts to recreate this reaction were unsuccessful, sometimes with amino acids reacting with each other rather than RNA, and other times with unstable conditions in water, causing the process to break down.<\/p>\n

\"Researchers<\/p>\n

Researchers believe RNA-amino acid reaction could\u2019ve occurred in nutrient rich pools and lakes on the early Earth (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Future experiments could build on the basic reactions seen in this one, with researchers aiming to someday create self-replicating structures.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine the day that chemists might take simple, small molecules, consisting of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and sulphur atoms, and from these LEGO pieces form molecules capable of self-replication,\u201d lead author Dr. Jyoti Singh said<\/a> in a news release. \u201cThis would be a monumental step towards solving the question of life’s origin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study brings us closer to that goal by demonstrating how two primordial chemical LEGO pieces (activated amino acids and RNA) could have built peptides, short chains of amino acids that are essential to life,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The UCL team believes the reaction they demonstrated could\u2019ve taken place in early lakes and nutrient-rich pools.<\/p>\n

Observers said the recent breakthrough may someday be seen as a fundamental new chapter in early-life biology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team of researchers has not only achieved peptide synthesis with the participation of RNA molecules, in a manner analogous to but much simpler than that of living cells, but they have also managed to do so under neutral aqueous conditions and using a form of energy activation that is highly plausible for the first steps of life on Earth,\u201d Kepa Ruiz Mirazo, a biophysicist and philosopher at the University of the Basque Country, told<\/a> El Pa\u00eds English, arguing the researchers\u2019 findings could be \u201cthe most significant in recent times\u201d in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still many pieces to be solved in the immense puzzle of the origin of life on our planet, but science has found a very important place to fit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists may have discovered a reaction that provides the \u201cmissing link\u201d to help explain how early life formed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[14584,49,48,58866,1677,58867,10571,11250,58865,66],"class_list":["post-102048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-amino-acids","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-early-earth","tag-earth","tag-origin-of-life-on-earth","tag-researchers","tag-ribonucleic-acid","tag-rna-world","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}