Possible evolutionary origin of primitive protein-encoding mRNAs as a virusoid-like ribo-organism.

E. coli rnpA and rpmH genes encoding the protein portion of ribonuclease (RNase) P and L34 ribosomal protein were found to be homologous to the entire sequence of M1 RNA and virusoids. The resulting alignment strongly suggests that most primitive mRNAs must have emerged from virusoid-like ribo-organism.