Self-replicating RNA discovered of only 45 nucleotides long

Original title (too long for submission): “A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand“

Abstract: The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural complexity impede self-replication and preclude their spontaneous emergence. Here we describe QT45: a 45-nucleotide polymerase ribozyme, discovered from random sequence pools, that catalyzes general RNA-templated RNA synthesis using trinucleotide triphosphate (triplet) substrates in mildly alkaline eutectic ice. QT45 can synthesize both its complementary strand using a random triplet pool at 94.1% per-nucleotide fidelity, and a copy of itself using defined substrates, both with yields of ~0.2% in 72 days. The discovery of polymerase activity in a small RNA motif suggests that polymerase ribozymes are more abundant in RNA sequence space than previously thought.

> that catalyzes general RNA-templated RNA synthesis using trinucleotide triphosphate (triplet) substrates

So it need very short RNA strings (length = 3), each one with a triphosphate that means that it is high energy molecule, similar to the ATP (length = 1).

I'm not sure if this is very optimistic bath composition, or it's a brilliant insight of why codons has length 3 too.

Also written up at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2515482-rna-strand-that...