BI110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Polymerization, Cyanobacteria, Autotroph
Document Summary
Bi110 - lecture 11 - origins & early evolution of life and cytoskeleton. Rna can replicate itself and catalyze basic metabolic reactions. Protein was the next molecule to evolve in cells. This was an advantage over rna as it"s made of more amino acids and can catalyze more reactions at more efficient rates. Dna was the last thing to evolve. This was an advantage as the genetic material is more stable than rna, as it is double- stranded and there are subtle differences in structure. Were able to develop, in vitro, a ribozyme that is capable of catalyzing the addition of ribonucleotides to an existing strand of rna. Started with a set of millions-billions of different large rna molecules. Selected the ribozymes with the best activity, randomly mutated the sequences, and repeated at least 18 times. Proteins became dominant structural and functional macromolecule of all cells.
