Issac Roy, Chmielewski Jean
Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
J Am Chem Soc. 2002 Jun 19;124(24):6808-9. doi: 10.1021/ja026024i.
Self-replicating peptide systems hold great promise for a wide range of technological applications, as well as to address fundamental questions pertaining to the molecular origins of life. The development of self-replicating compounds capable of high efficiency, however, has remained elusive. Here we disclose a successful strategy whereby modulation of coiled-coil stability results in remarkable catalytic efficiency for self-replication. By shortening the peptide to the minimum length necessary for coiled-coil formation a highly efficient self-replicating system was obtained due to very low background reaction rates, bringing the efficiency close to naturally occurring enzymes.
自我复制肽系统在广泛的技术应用以及解决与生命分子起源相关的基本问题方面具有巨大潜力。然而，开发具有高效率的自我复制化合物仍然难以实现。在此，我们揭示了一种成功的策略，即通过调节卷曲螺旋稳定性可实现显著的自我复制催化效率。通过将肽缩短至形成卷曲螺旋所需的最小长度，由于背景反应速率极低，从而获得了高效的自我复制系统，其效率接近天然存在的酶。
