Conformational studies on nucleotide–amino acid interactions leading to origin of life.

ABSTRACT

Living processes may be defined as the self-sustained chemical reactions based on the special chemical machinery of nucleic acid-directed protein synthesis. Its genesis may be traced to the molecular interaction between nucleotides and amino acids leading to a primitive adaptor-mediated ordered synthesis of polypeptides. A primitive decoding system is described and its characteristics are shown to imitate, in a primitive manner, the present-day elaborate machinery of protein synthesis. This molecular interaction theory may be rightly considered as the missing link between the Protochemical and Biological Evolution. The origin of chiral specificity observed in living organisms is also traced to this specific molecular interaction in the protobiological milieu.