Rapid, Isothermal DNA Self-Replication Induced by a Destabilizing Lesion

摘要

One process that chemists have aimed to incorporate into artificial systems is self-replication. Synthetic self-replicating systems use self-assembly or molecular recognition to initiate and propagate replication, which also gives insights into the origins of life. For these synthetic processes to be functional as biomimetic models, they should demonstrate sigmoidal amplification at a constant temperature. However, synthetic replication processes based on biomolecules (like DNA) are plagued by product inhibition and competing background reactions, preventing these systems from exhibiting the sigmoidal growth characteristic of self-replication. One way that product inhibition has been,avoided and exponential amplification achieved involved using stepwise procedures, whereby the composition of the system was physically modulated to facilitate replication. This mechanical intervention, once every catalytic cycle, is similar to the need for thermal cycling in DNA replication strategies like the polymerase chain reaction, where heating is required to destabilize the product complex and turn over the reaction.