Directed molecular evolution.
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.
Harris
L F
LF
David F. Hickok Memorial Cancer Research Laboratory, Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, MN 55407, USA. harrislf@sp.msl.umn.edu
Sullivan
M R
MR
Hatfield
D L
DL
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
D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D004247:DNA