Abiotic ligation of DNA oligomers templated by their liquid crystal ordering

Nature Communications
Tommaso P FracciaTommaso Bellini

Abstract

It has been observed that concentrated solutions of short DNA oligomers develop liquid crystal ordering as the result of a hierarchically structured supramolecular self-assembly. In mixtures of oligomers with various degree of complementarity, liquid crystal microdomains are formed via the selective aggregation of those oligomers that have a sufficient degree of duplexing and propensity for physical polymerization. Here we show that such domains act as fluid and permeable microreactors in which the order-stabilized molecular contacts between duplex terminals serve as physical templates for their chemical ligation. In the presence of abiotic condensing agents, liquid crystal ordering markedly enhances ligation efficacy, thereby enhancing its own phase stability. The coupling between order-templated ligation and selectivity provided by supramolecular ordering enables an autocatalytic cycle favouring the growth of DNA chains, up to biologically relevant lengths, from few-base long oligomers. This finding suggests a novel scenario for the abiotic origin of nucleic acids.

References

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Citations

May 16, 2015·Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere : the Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life·Tommaso P FracciaTommaso Bellini
Apr 10, 2016·Angewandte Chemie·Matthias MoraschChristof B Mast
Jul 4, 2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Gregory P SmithNoel A Clark
May 1, 2019·Chembiochem : a European Journal of Chemical Biology·Nicolas Martin
Dec 17, 2019·Soft Matter·Supriyo NaskarPrabal K Maiti
Sep 30, 2015·Chemphyschem : a European Journal of Chemical Physics and Physical Chemistry·Carsten Tschierske, Goran Ungar
Apr 19, 2017·Physical Review. E·Suman SaurabhPrabal K Maiti
Feb 17, 2021·Nucleic Acids Research·Zenita AdhireksanCurt A Davey
Oct 24, 2018·ACS Nano·Antonio Lazcano
Sep 10, 2021·Bioconjugate Chemistry·Takuya HidakaSoyoung Park

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
light microscopy
electrophoresis

Software Mentioned

MATLAB
MacBiophotonics
Instec
ImageJ

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