Prebiotically Plausible Peptides can Self-assemble into β-rich Nanostructures.

ABSTRACT: Modern proteins are remarkable polymers built from a 20-amino-acid alphabet, shaped by billions of years of evolution. Yet in Earth's prebiotic era, several amino acids - particularly the canonical basic residues lysine, arginine, and histidine - were likely scarce, unlike the more readily available acidic amino acids. Moreover, protein-length polymers were inaccessible before ribosomal synthesis emerged, and peptides were probably short, statistical, and non-templated. How the earliest proteins and enzymes emerged under these constraints remains a central question in origins-of-life research. Here, we synthesize random peptide libraries that span a broad electrostatic spectrum and systematically interrogate their properties. The data indicate that a prebiotically plausible acidic alphabet

SUBMITTER: Makarov M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12642478 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature