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Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 018101 (2011) [4 pages]

Emergence of Information Transmission in a Prebiotic RNA Reactor

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Benedikt Obermayer1,*, Hubert Krammer2, Dieter Braun2, and Ulrich Gerland1,†
1Arnold-Sommerfeld-Center für Theoretische Physik and Center for NanoScience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
2Systems Biophysics, Physics Department, Center for Nanoscience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

Received 18 March 2011; published 27 June 2011

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A poorly understood step in the transition from a chemical to a biological world is the emergence of self-replicating molecular systems. We study how a precursor for such a replicator might arise in a hydrothermal RNA reactor, which accumulates longer sequences from unbiased monomer influx and random ligation. In the reactor, intra- and intermolecular base pairing locally protects from random cleavage. By analyzing stochastic simulations, we find temporal sequence correlations that constitute a signature of information transmission, weaker but of the same form as in a true replicator.

© 2011 American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.018101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.018101
PACS:
87.14.G-, 82.39.Pj, 87.15.H-, 87.23.Kg

*Present address: Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138, USA.

†gerland@lmu.de

 
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