title: Thermal, autonomous replicator made from transfer RNA.
abstract: Evolving systems rely on the storage and replication of genetic information. Here we present an autonomous, purely thermally driven replication mechanism. A pool of hairpin molecules, derived from transfer RNA replicates the succession of a two-letter code. Energy is first stored thermally in metastable hairpins. Thereafter, energy is released by a highly specific and exponential replication with a duplication time of 30 s, which is much faster than the tendency to produce false positives in the absence of template. Our experiments propose a physical rather than a chemical scenario for the autonomous replication of protein encoding information in a disequilibrium setting.
authors.affiliation: Systems Biophysics, Physics Department, Center for Nanoscience, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, Amalienstrasse 54, 80799 München, Germany.
authors.forename: Hubert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Krammer
authors.forename: Friederike M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Möller
authors.forename: Dieter
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Braun
mesh_terms: D000926:Anticodon; D001483:Base Sequence; D055029:Inverted Repeat Sequences; D017014:Methanobacterium / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012343:RNA, Transfer / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D000926:Anticodon; D012343:RNA, Transfer