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Letters to the editors


Life originated as a genetic code (contribution to the discussion of the paper by G.R. Ivanitskii "21st century: what is life from the perspective of physics" [Usp. Fiz. Nauk. 180 337 (2010); Phys. Usp. 53 327 (2010); Usp. Fiz. Nauk. 182 1235 (2012); Phys. Usp. 55 1152 (2012); Usp. Fiz. Nauk 182 1238 (2012); Phys. Usp. 55 1155 (2012)])


Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institutskaya str. 3, Pushchino, Moscow Region, 142290, Russian Federation

This letter is aimed at concretizing the origin-of-life scenario. The letter defines life as a self-reproducing information system and briefly discusses the current status of the origin-of-life problem. The first bimolecular origin-of-life scenario is proposed which is based on the interaction of amino acids with triplets of nucleotides corresponding to their codons. In this scenario, the reproduction of information occurs by hydrogen bonding with complementary nucleotides and hence is due to the formation of complementary codons that reproduce the primary codons. The bimolecular scenario fundamentally necessitates the existence of complementary codons for all amino acids associated with life. For 21 amino acids, a complete correspondence is shown to exist between codons and complementary codons, a fact which greatly favors the proposed hypothesis because this correspondence is impossible if amino acids choose codons at random.

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Fulltext is also available at DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.2016.11.037996
Keywords: amino acids, life origin, genetic code
PACS: 87.14.−g, 87.18.−h, 87.23.kg (all)
DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.2016.11.037996
URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/2017/2/g/
000401039000007
2-s2.0-85019151388
2017PhyU...60..219K
Citation: Korystov Yu N "Life originated as a genetic code (contribution to the discussion of the paper by G.R. Ivanitskii "21st century: what is life from the perspective of physics" [Usp. Fiz. Nauk. 180 337 (2010); Phys. Usp. 53 327 (2010); Usp. Fiz. Nauk. 182 1235 (2012); Phys. Usp. 55 1152 (2012); Usp. Fiz. Nauk 182 1238 (2012); Phys. Usp. 55 1155 (2012)])" Phys. Usp. 60 219–224 (2017)
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Received: 23rd, August 2016, revised: 18th, November 2016, 30th, November 2016

Оригинал: Корыстов Ю Н «Жизнь возникла как генетический код (к дискуссии по статье Г.Р. Иваницкого "XXI век: что такое жизнь с точки зрения физики" [УФН 180 337 (2010); УФН 182 1235 (2012); УФН 182 1238 (2012)]» УФН 187 235–240 (2017); DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.2016.11.037996

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