OoL digest — edition 4

Time for our fourth OoL digest! Today, we are looking at RNA polymerization, the evolution of photosynthesis, the role of replicator death in evolution and that of lightning strikes on phosphorus reduction on early Earth.

Biology/biochemistry

Cojocaru, R., Unrau, P.J., 2021. Processive RNA polymerization and promoter recognition in an RNA World. Science 371, 1225–1232. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd9191

Oliver, T., Sánchez-Baracaldo, P., Larkum, A.W., Rutherford, A.W., Cardona, T., 2021. Time-resolved comparative molecular evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Bioenergetics 1862, 148400. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbabio.2021.148400

Yang, S., Schaeffer, G., Mattia, E., Markovitch, O., Liu, K., Hussain, A.S., Ottelé, J., Sood, A., Otto, S., n.d. Chemical Fueling Enables Molecular Complexification of Self-Replicators. Angewandte Chemie International Edition n/a. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202016196

Earth Sciences

Hess, B.L., Piazolo, S., Harvey, J., 2021. Lightning strikes as a major facilitator of prebiotic phosphorus reduction on early Earth. Nature Communications 12, 1535. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21849-2


Happy reading !