A newly engineered ribozyme can seek out and repair broken RNA strands, offering clues about how early life may have survived without DNA or proteins. Beyond its origins-of-life implications, the discovery could help detect broken RNA linked to viral infections and certain cancers — molecules that current sequencing tools routinely miss. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame published the findings in Nature Communications.
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have engineered a ribozyme — an RNA-based enzyme — that selectively identifies and repairs broken RNA strands. The finding, published in Nature Communications, supports the RNA World hypothesis, which proposes that life on Earth nearly four billion years ago was powered exclusively by RNA, before DNA and proteins took over.
The ribozyme works by recognizing a telltale chemical signature of broken RNA: a terminal phosphate group, rather than the hydroxyl group found at the end of intact strands. This selectivity suggests that similar RNA repair mechanisms could have existed in early life forms, preventing the permanent loss of genetic information from environmental damage.
But the implications don't stop at ancient biology. Broken RNA is a known marker in viral infections and certain cancers — yet standard RNA sequencing tools are essentially blind to it, since chemical tags used in sequencing don't attach to broken ends. This ribozyme could help make those invisible fragments detectable.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: This unexpected discovery bridges two worlds — ancient evolutionary biology and modern diagnostics — potentially unlocking new tools for understanding RNA's role in disease.
