Chemical ‘LEGO’ hints at life’s origins
1 Sep 2025
Scientists have succeeded in linking amino acids with ribonucleic acid (RNA) to suggest how the pairing might have occurred spontaneously at the origin of life.
Senior author Professor Matthew Powner, based at UCL chemistry department, said of the team’s work published in Nature:
“Life relies on the ability to synthesise proteins – they are life’s key functional molecules. Understanding the origin of protein synthesis is fundamental to understanding where life came from.
“Our study is a big step towards this goal, showing how RNA might have first come to control protein synthesis.
The goal of replicating conditions judged to have occurred 4 billion years ago had eluded researchers for decades, said the academics.
Outlined Powner: “Life today uses an immensely complex molecular machine, the ribosome, to synthesise proteins. This machine requires chemical instructions written in messenger RNA, which carries a gene’s sequence from a cell’s DNA to the ribosome.
“The ribosome then, like a factory assembly line, reads this RNA and links together amino acids, one by one, to create a protein.”
He added that his team’s work had achieved the first part of the process, employing simple chemistry in water at neutral pH to link amino acids to RNA – which he described as a spontaneous, selective event that could have occurred on the early Earth.
Mindful that other attempts to attach amino acids to RNA used highly reactive molecules that broke down in water and caused the amino acids to react with each other, rather than linking with RNA, the chemists turned to biology.
For the new study, the researchers took inspiration from biology, adopting a gentler method to convert life’s amino acids into a reactive form, using a thioester – a chemical compound theorised to have played a role in the origin of life.
Following this, the aim is to establish how RNA sequences could bind preferentially to particular amino acids, enabling them to code instructions for protein synthesis from which originated the genetic code.
Powner’s colleague, lead author Dr Jyoti Singh likened the components involved in the study to “two primordial chemical LEGO pieces”
“Imagine the day that chemists might take simple, small molecules, consisting of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and sulphur atoms, and from these LEGO pieces form molecules capable of self-replication. This would be a monumental step towards solving the question of life's origin,” said Singh.
“What is particularly groundbreaking is that the activated amino acid used in this study is a thioester, a type of molecule made from Coenzyme A, a chemical found in all living cells. This discovery could potentially link metabolism, the genetic code and protein building.”
The chemical reactions were studied with techniques including several types of magnetic resonance imaging and mass spectrometry, with work funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Simons Foundation and the Royal Society.
Pic: Shutterstock (Christoph Burgsted)
