{"id":4330,"date":"2013-11-25T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-11-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/biochem\/new-findings-from-the-carter-lab-challenge-assumptions-about-origins-of-life\/"},"modified":"2018-08-01T10:35:51","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T14:35:51","slug":"new-findings-from-the-carter-lab-challenge-assumptions-about-origins-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/biochem\/news\/new-findings-from-the-carter-lab-challenge-assumptions-about-origins-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"New findings from the Carter lab challenge assumptions about origins of life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Dr. Charles Carter, Jr., Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics resurrect \u201cmolecular fossils\u201d to conduct experiments that undercut the predominant scientific theory of how life began on Earth.<\/p>\n

\n
\n \"image2\"\/
Charles W. Carter, Jr., Ph.D.
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Before there was life on Earth, there were molecules. A primordial soup. At some point a few specialized molecules began replicating. This self-replication, scientists agree, kick-started a biochemical process that would lead to the first organisms. But exactly how that happened \u2014 how those molecules began replicating \u2014 has been one of science\u2019s enduring mysteries.<\/p>\n

Now, research from UNC School of Medicine biochemist Charles Carter, PhD, appearing in the September 13 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry<\/i>, offers an intriguing new view on how life began. Carter\u2019s work is based on lab experiments during which his team recreated ancient protein enzymes that likely played a vital role in helping create life on Earth. Carter\u2019s finding flies in the face of the widely-held theory that Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) self-replicated without the aid of simple proteins and eventually led to life as we know it.<\/p>\n

In the early 1980s, researchers found that ribozymes \u2014 RNA enzymes \u2014 act as catalysts. It was evidence that RNA can be both the blueprints and the chemical catalysts that put those blueprints into action. This finding led to the \u201cRNA World\u201d hypothesis, which posits that RNA alone triggered the rise of life from a sea of molecules.<\/p>\n

But for the hypothesis to be correct, ancient RNA catalysts would have had to copy multiple sets of RNA blueprints nearly as accurately as do modern-day enzymes. That\u2019s a hard sell; scientists calculate that it would take much longer than the age of the universe for randomly generated RNA molecules to evolve sufficiently to achieve the modern level of sophistication. Given Earth\u2019s age of 4.5 billion years, living systems run entirely by RNA could not have reproduced and evolved either fast or accurately enough to give rise to the vast biological complexity on Earth today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe RNA world hypothesis is extremely unlikely,\u201d said Carter. \u201cIt would take forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, there\u2019s no proof that such ribozymes even existed billions of years ago. To buttress the RNA World hypothesis, scientists use 21st<\/sup> century technology to create ribozymes that serve as catalysts. \u201cBut most of those synthetic ribozymes,\u201d Carter said, \u201cbear little resemblance to anything anyone has ever isolated from a living system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter, who has been an expert in ancient biochemistry for four decades, took a different approach. His experiments are deeply embedded in consensus biology.<\/p>\n

Our genetic code is translated by two super-families of modern-day enzymes. Carter\u2019s research team created and superimposed digital three-dimensional versions of the two super-families to see how their structures aligned. Carter found that all the enzymes have virtually identical cores that can be extracted to produce \u201cmolecular fossils\u201d he calls Urzymes \u2014 Ur<\/i> meaning earliest or original. The other parts, he said, are variations that were introduced later, as evolution unfolded.<\/p>\n

\"Carter_Image\"<\/p>\n

These two Urzymes are as close as scientists have gotten to the actual ancient enzymes that would have populated the Earth billions of years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we identified the core part of the enzyme, we cloned it and expressed it,\u201d Carter said. \u201cThen we wanted to see if we could stabilize it and determine if it had any biochemical activity.\u201d They could and it did.<\/p>\n

Both Urzymes are very good at accelerating the two reactions necessary to translate the genetic code.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur results suggest that there were very active protein enzymes very early in the generation of life, before there were organisms,\u201d Carter said. \u201cAnd those enzymes were very much like the Urzymes we\u2019ve made.\u201d<\/p>\n

The finding also suggests that Urzymes evolved from even simpler ancestors \u2014 tiny proteins called peptides. And over time those peptides co-evolved with RNA to give rise to more complex life forms.<\/p>\n

In this \u201cPeptide-RNA World\u201d scenario, RNA would have contained the instructions for life while peptides would have accelerated key chemical reactions to carry out those instructions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think that these two Urzymes might have launched protein synthesis before there was life on Earth is totally electrifying,\u201d Carter said. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine a much more exciting result to be working on, if one is interested in the origin of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study leaves open the question of exactly how those primitive systems managed to replicate themselves \u2014 something neither the RNA World hypothesis nor the Peptide-RNA World theory can yet explain. Carter, though, is extending his research to include polymerases \u2014 enzymes that actually assemble the RNA molecule. Finding an Urzyme that serves that purpose would help answer that question.<\/p>\n

The study\u2019s co-authors include Li Li of UNC and Christopher Francklyn of the University of Vermont, Burlington. R<\/a>ead the study at The Journal of Biological Chemistry<\/span>.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The Charlotte News Observer <\/a>and Raleigh News Observer<\/a> also posted an article \u201cTheory questions RNA-only evolution of complex organisms\u201d about Dr. Carter\u2019s research<\/p>\n

The Journal of Biological Chemistry<\/a> interviewed Charles Carter at the University of North Carolina, who talks in a podcast about his paper of the week, \u201cAminoacylating Urzymes Challenge the RNA World Hypothesis<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The http:\/\/www.asbmb.org\/News.aspx?id=48912<\/p>\n

Read more here: http:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/2013\/10\/27\/4412450\/theory-questions-rna-only-evolution.html#.Um0H9BZqrnc#storylink=cpy<\/div>\n

\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Dr. Charles Carter, Jr., Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics resurrect \u201cmolecular fossils\u201d to conduct experiments that undercut the predominant scientific theory of how life began on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37803,"featured_media":4331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10,19,4],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-news_faculty","tag-news_2013","tag-recent-news","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew findings from the Carter lab challenge assumptions about origins of life | Biochemistry and Biophysics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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