In all extant life, genetic information is stored in nucleic acids that are replicated by polymerase proteins. In the hypothesized RNA world, before the evolution of genetically encoded proteins, ancestral organisms contained RNA genes that were replicated by an RNA polymerase ribozyme. In an effort toward reconstructing RNA-based life in the laboratory, in vitro evolution was used to improve dramatically the activity and generality of an RNA polymerase ribozyme by selecting variants that can synthesize functional RNA molecules from an RNA template. The improved polymerase ribozyme is able to synthesize a variety of complex structured RNAs, including aptamers, ribozymes, and, in low yield, even tRNA. Furthermore, the polymerase can replicate nucleic acids, amplifying short RNA templates by more than 10,000-fold in an RNA-catalyzed form of the PCR. Thus, the two prerequisites of Darwinian life-the replication of genetic information and its conversion into functional molecules-can now be accomplished with RNA in the complete absence of proteins.
Keywords: PCR; RNA enzyme; in vitro evolution; ribozyme; self-replication.