Researchers have engineered an RNA enzyme to synthesize another active RNA enzyme from an RNA template. This models one theory for how life originated on Earth: with RNA molecules that both encoded genetic information and catalysed reactions to express that information.
Philipp Holliger and his co-workers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, started out with an RNA enzyme, or ribozyme, called R18, which is known to synthesize short stretches of RNA. They created a library of modified versions of R18 and used it to screen for ribozymes with improved enzymatic activity. They ended up with a new ribozyme, tC19Z, capable of generating longer pieces of RNA from a wider range of templates than R18. The enzyme could also synthesize a different ribozyme.
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No DNA needed, RNA goes solo. Nature 472, 139 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/472139e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/472139e
