Non-enzymatic Synthesis of RNA and Nucleic Acid-like Polymers

The transfer of DNA sequence information by nucleic acid replication is central to all of biology. This reaction has been incorporated into important biotechnology applications such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), an instrumental tool with a variety of important uses such as genetic mutation detection. All such replication reactions are catalyzed by complex enzymatic systems, but new ways to synthesize nucleic acids are needed. The potential use of a non-enzymatic process has been studied, but has been met with limited success.

In earlier studies, it has been demonstrated that anhydrous lipids form a lamellar matrix that can organize monomers within lipid membranes.. Rajamini et al. (2008) reported that drying and rehydrating these membranes at moderately elevated temperatures  provides sufficient chemical potential to drive the synthesis of phosphodiester bonds between nucleoside monophosphatesresulting in low yields of RNA-like polymers. These strands were around 50 nucleotides in length and ranged from 10 to 100 nucleotides.