title: Are prions a relic of an early stage of peptide evolution?
abstract: The rather unique properties of prions and their presence in very different kinds of living species suggest that this type of molecule was created at a very early stage of evolution and may even represent a relic from a time where peptide evolution was ongoing and RNA/DNA did not yet exist. A comparison of the most frequently occurring amino acid sequences in known prions with the sequences preferentially formed in the salt-induced peptide formation reaction, the most simple mechanism enabling the formation of peptides under primitive earth conditions, shows a remarkable coincidence that strongly supports this hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Chemistry Division, Institute for General, Inorganic, and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Austria. Bernd.M.Rode@uibk.ac.at
authors.forename: B M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Rode
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Flader
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sotriffer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Righi
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008954:Models, Biological; D000069497:Origin of Life; D011328:Prions / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D011328:Prions