title: Directed molecular evolution.
abstract: We propose the existence of a relationship of stereochemical complementarity between gene sequences that code for interacting components: nucleic acid-nucleic acid, protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid. Such a relationship would impose evolutionary constraints on the DNA sequences themselves, thus retaining these sequences and governing the direction of the evolutionary process. Therefore, we propose that prebiotic, template-directed autocatalytic synthesis of mutally cognate peptides and polynucleotides resulted in their amplification and evolutionary conservation in contemporary prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms as a genetic regulatory apparatus. If this proposal is correct, then the relationships between the sequences in DNA coding for these interactions constitute a life code of which the genetic code is only one aspect of the many related interactions encoded in DNA.
authors.affiliation: David F. Hickok Memorial Cancer Research Laboratory, Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, MN 55407, USA. harrislf@sp.msl.umn.edu
authors.forename: L F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Hatfield
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D019020:Directed Molecular Evolution; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D013237:Stereoisomerism
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D004247:DNA