Selection of Early Life Codons by Ultraviolet Light.

ABSTRACT: How life developed in its earliest stages is a central but notoriously difficult question in science. The earliest lifeforms likely used a reduced set of codon sequences that were progressively completed over time, driven by chemical, physical, and combinatorial constraints. However, despite its importance for prebiotic chemistry, UV radiation has not been considered a selection pressure for the evolution of early codon sequences. In this proof-of-principle study, we quantified the UV susceptibility of large pools of DNA protogenomes and tested the timing of evolutionary incorporation of codon sequences using a Monte Carlo method utilizing sequence-context-dependent damage rates previously determined by high throughput sequencing experiments. We traced the UV-radiation selection pressure o

SUBMITTER: Kufner CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11758376 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature