Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Florida 32601, USA.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2012 Jan 1;4(1):a003541. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a003541.
No community-accepted scientific methods are available today to guide studies on what role RNA played in the origin and early evolution of life on Earth. Further, a definition-theory for life is needed to develop hypotheses relating to the "RNA First" model for the origin of life. Four approaches are currently at various stages of development of such a definition-theory to guide these studies. These are (a) paleogenetics, in which inferences about the structure of past life are drawn from the structure of present life; (b) prebiotic chemistry, in which hypotheses with experimental support are sought that get RNA from organic and inorganic species possibly present on early Earth; (c) exploration, hoping to encounter life independent of terran life, which might contain RNA; and (d) synthetic biology, in which laboratories attempt to reproduce biological behavior with unnatural chemical systems.
目前，尚无被科学界认可的方法可用于研究 RNA 在地球生命起源和早期演化中所扮演的角色。此外，还需要一个生命定义理论来提出与生命起源的“RNA 优先”模型相关的假设。目前有四种方法处于该定义理论的不同发展阶段，旨在指导这些研究。这些方法是：(a) 古遗传学，根据现有生命的结构推断过去生命的结构；(b) 前生物化学，寻找具有实验支持的假设，使 RNA 从可能存在于早期地球的有机和无机物种中产生；(c) 探索，希望遇到独立于地球生命的生命，其中可能包含 RNA；以及(d) 合成生物学，实验室试图用非自然的化学系统复制生物行为。
