2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Examination of the codon-acquisition hypothesis in the early evolution of life
| Project/Area Number |
25650127
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Evolutionary biology
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
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| Keywords | RNA複製酵素 / コドン |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Present-day proteins consist of mainly 20 amino acids, while ancient proteins are considered to consist of fewer amino acids. In this study, I attempted to examine this hypothesis through developing an RNA replication enzyme that consists of fewer than 20 amino acids by using an evolvable RNA replication system that we have established. We succeeded to reduce the number of methionine codons in the RNA replicase from 8 to 2, but further reduction abolish the repllication activity. This result demonstrates that the development of an RNA replicase consists of 19 amino acids requires evolution under more different conditions, such as the completely methionine-depleted condition.
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| Free Research Field |
合成生物学
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