David Deamer, University of California, Santa Cruz
June 17 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Nanopore sequencing may explain the origin of nucleic acids
David Deamer, University of California, Santa Cruz
Abstract
Were nucleic acids invented by primitive forms of life? The alternative is that non-enzymatic polymerization synthesized nucleic acids before life began. I will describe a series of reactions driven by wet-dry cycles that are ubiquitous in freshwater hot springs associated with volcanic land masses. Multiple wet-dry cycles serve the essential role of concentrating potential reactants and provide chemical free energy to drive condensation reactions required for polymerization. We used nanopore analysis to confirm that nucleic acid oligomers are synthesized from mononucleotides by wet-dry cycling and determined the base sequences of individual molecules. Several conclusions follow from this result: 1. Freshwater hot springs are more plausible than salty seawater as a site conducive for the origin of life. 2. Nucleic acids were not invented by primitive forms of life on the early Earth. Instead, given the presence of mononucleotides, polymers resembling nucleic acids would have been generated by wet-dry cycles and then accumulate in volcanic hot springs on the early Earth.
Join us on Monday, June 17 at 4 PM in Witherspoon Student Center 201 for the Genetics and Genomics Seminar Series.
No registration is required to attend In-Person
If you are interested with meeting with David Deamer, please contact host Fred Gould (fgould@ncsu.edu).