Overview

• University College London researchers showed that activated amino acids and thiols formed high‑energy thioesters in neutral‑pH water that selectively aminoacylated RNA without enzymes.
• Thioesters proved unexpectedly stable in bulk water across temperatures from ambient to freezing and targeted the 2',3' diol at the 3' end of double‑stranded RNA regions.
• Aminoacylation occurred on all four nucleotides and spanned a broad set of amino acids, including charged residues such as arginine and lysine.
• Reaction of thioesters with hydrogen sulfide generated reactive thioacids that, upon activation, forged peptide bonds, enabling stepwise peptidyl‑RNA synthesis.
• The team argues the chemistry best fits concentrated ponds or lakes rather than the open ocean, with upcoming work focused on sequence preferences and the later emergence of coded translation.