Browsing by Author "Szostak, Jack"

Now showing items 1-18 of 18

    • Chemical Neurobiology of the Histone Lysine Demethylase KDM1A 

      Ricq, Emily (2016-05-18)
      Epigenetic mechanisms regulate gene expression and mediate interactions between genetic factors and environmental exposures. The enzymes responsible for epigenetic regulation may thus be important therapeutic targets for ...

    • Controlled Growth of Filamentous Fatty Acid Vesicles under Flow 

      Hentrich, Christian; Szostak, Jack W. (American Chemical Society, 2014)
      The earliest forms of cellular life would have required a membrane compartment capable of growth and division. Fatty acid vesicles are an attractive model of protocell membranes, as they can grow into filamentous vesicles ...

    • Electrostatic Localization of RNA to Protocell Membranes by Cationic Hydrophobic Peptides 

      Kamat, Neha P; Tobé, Sylvia; Hill, Ian T; Szostak, Jack W (WILEY-VCH Verlag, 2015)
      Cooperative interactions between RNA and vesicle membranes on the prebiotic earth may have led to the emergence of primitive cells. The membrane surface offers a potential platform for the catalysis of reactions involving ...

    • Multicomponent Assembly of Proposed DNA Precursors in Water 

      Powner, Matthew W.; Zheng, Shao-Liang; Szostak, Jack William (American Chemical Society, 2012)
      We propose a novel pathway for the prebiotic synthesis of 2′-deoxynucleotides. Consideration of the constitutional chemical relationships between glycolaldehyde and β-mercapto-acetaldehyde, and the corresponding proteinogenic ...

    • Non-Enzymatic Copying of Nucleic Acid Templates 

      Blain, Jonathan Craig (2014-02-25)
      All known living cells contain a complex set of molecular machinery to support their growth and replication. However, the earliest cells must have been much simpler, consisting of a compartment and a genetic material to ...

    • Nonenzymatic copying of RNA templates containing all four letters is catalyzed by activated oligonucleotides 

      Prywes, Noam; Blain, J Craig; Del Frate, Francesca; Szostak, Jack W (eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd, 2016)
      The nonenzymatic replication of RNA is a potential transitional stage between the prebiotic chemistry of nucleotide synthesis and the canonical RNA world in which RNA enzymes (ribozymes) catalyze replication of the RNA ...

    • Oligoarginine Peptides Slow Strand Annealing and Assist Nonenzymatic RNA Replication 

      Jia, Tony Z.; Fahrenbach, Albert C.; Kamat, Neha P.; Adamala, Katarzyna P.; Szostak, Jack W. (2016)
      The nonenzymatic replication of RNA is thought to have been a critical process required for the origin of life. One unsolved difficulty with nonenzymatic RNA replication is that template-directed copying of RNA results in ...

    • Peptide-Assisted Nonenzymatic RNA Replication in Coacervate Droplets 

      Jia, Tony Z. (2016-09-14)
      Life on earth may have first appeared in the form of a protocell capable of metabolism and containing a self-replicating informational polymer. This polymer was likely to have been RNA due to its ability to serve both as ...

    • Physical Models for the Early Evolution of Cell Membranes 

      Budin, Itay (2012-11-14)
      Cells use lipid membranes to organize and define their chemical environments. All cell membranes are based on a common structure: bilayers composed of phospholipids with two hydrocarbon chains. How did biology converge on ...

    • Pinpointing RNA-Protein Cross-Links with Site-Specific Stable Isotope-Labeled Oligonucleotides 

      Lelyveld, Victor S.; Björkbom, Anders; Ransey, Elizabeth M.; Sliz, Piotr; Szostak, Jack W. (American Chemical Society, 2015)
      High affinity RNA-protein interactions are critical to cellular function, but directly identifying the determinants of binding within these complexes is often difficult. Here, we introduce a stable isotope mass labeling ...

    • Preparation of Large Monodisperse Vesicles 

      Zhu, Ting; Szostak, Jack William (Public Library of Science, 2009)
      Preparation of monodisperse vesicles is important both for research purposes and for practical applications. While the extrusion of vesicles through small pores (~100 nm in diameter) results in relatively uniform populations ...

    • Rapid RNA Exchange in Aqueous Two-Phase System and Coacervate Droplets 

      Jia, Tony Z.; Hentrich, Christian; Szostak, Jack W. (Springer Netherlands, 2014)
      Compartmentalization in a prebiotic setting is an important aspect of early cell formation and is crucial for the development of an artificial protocell system that effectively couples genotype and phenotype. Aqueous ...

    • RNA Catalysis in Model Protocell Vesicles 

      Chen, Irene A.; Salehi-Ashtiani, Kourosh; Szostak, Jack W. (American Chemical Society, 2005)
      We are engaged in a long-term effort to synthesize chemical systems capable of Darwinian evolution, based on the encapsulation of self-replicating nucleic acids in self-replicating membrane vesicles. Here, we address the ...

    • Structural Studies of the Bacterial MutY Adenine DNA Glycosylase and Its Human Homolog MUTYH 

      Wang, Lan (2016-09-15)
      Cellular DNA is under constant threat of reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by either endogenous or exogenous sources. One of the major forms of DNA damages caused by ROS is 8-oxoguanine (oxoG), which is highly mutagenic, ...

    • Towards construction of synthetic ribosomes and a self-replicating system 

      Li, Jun (2014-06-06)
      In 2006, the Church Group, using biochemical approaches, hypothesized that ∼ 151 biomolecular components from Escherichia coli and its bacteriophages may be sufficient to enable rapid and accurate self–replication ...

    • Towards Self-Replicating Informational Polymers 

      Prywes, Noam (2016-05-16)
      The capability to transmit information from generation to generation is an essential feature of life. In all terrestrial life, DNA and RNA contain information in the form of a sequence of monomers and are copied in every ...

    • Uncovering the Thermodynamics of Monomer Binding for RNA Replication 

      Izgu, Enver Cagri; Fahrenbach, Albert C.; Zhang, Na; Li, Li; Zhang, Wen; Larsen, Aaron T.; Blain, J. Craig; Szostak, Jack W. (American Chemical Society, 2015)
      The nonenzymatic replication of primordial RNA is thought to have been a critical step in the origin of life. However, despite decades of effort, the poor rate and fidelity of model template copying reactions have thus far ...

    • Unusual Base-Pairing Interactions in Monomer–Template Complexes 

      Zhang, Wen; Tam, Chun Pong; Wang, Jiawei; Szostak, Jack W. (American Chemical Society, 2016)
      Many high-resolution crystal structures have contributed to our understanding of the reaction pathway for catalysis by DNA and RNA polymerases, but the structural basis of nonenzymatic template-directed RNA replication has ...