A synthetic molecular system capable of mirror-image genetic replication and transcription

作者：Wang, Zimou; Xu, Weiliang; Liu, Lei^*; Zhu, Ting F.^*

来源：Nature Chemistry, 2016, 8(7): 698-704.

DOI：10.1038/NCHEM.2517

• PROTEIN CHEMICAL-SYNTHESIS
• DNA-POLYMERASE
• REVERSE-TRANSCRIPTASE
• PEPTIDE HYDRAZIDES
• SYMMETRY-BREAKING
• 5-TRIPHOSPHATE
• SPECIFICITY
• CHEMISTRY
• SUBSTRATE
• ENZYME

The overwhelmingly homochiral nature of life has left a puzzle as to whether mirror-image biological systems based on a chirally inverted version of molecular machinery could also have existed. Here we report that two key steps in the central dogma of molecular biology, the template-directed polymerization of DNA and transcription into RNA, can be catalysed by a chemically synthesized D-amino acid polymerase on an L-DNA template. We also show that two chirally mirrored versions of the 174-residue African swine fever virus polymerase X could operate in a racemic mixture without significant enantiomeric cross-inhibition to the activity of each other. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a functionally active L-DNAzyme could be enzymatically produced using the D-amino acid polymerase. The establishment of such molecular systems with an opposite handedness highlights the potential to exploit enzymatically produced mirror-image biomolecules as research and therapeutic tools.

• 出版日期2016-7
• 单位清华大学