A hallmark of biology is the spontaneous transformation of simple chemical building blocks into increasingly complex systems. A remarkable example of this was the conversion of prebiotic feedstock molecules into the first replicating informational biopolymers. In an effort to explore how such chemical processes can occur, we are developing peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) that can spontaneously emerge from reactions involving simple building blocks in aqueous solution. One PNA under study is generated by the polymerization of simple tetrapeptides into longer peptide backbones that can covalently bind nucleobase units from solution, endowing the peptide backbone with sequence information. Another PNA to be presented spontaneously assembles in a two-step process involving a dynamic intermediate. In the first step of the PNA synthesis, the nucleobase units are subject to reversible backbone anchoring/exchange and could undergo dynamic template-directed selection or amplification. In the second step, the nucleobase sequence becomes fixed by a chemical transformation that irreversibly locks the nucleobases to the oligomer backbone.

Spontaneous, templated synthesis of peptide nucleic acids

251st National Meeting (2016)

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