Biology Asked on March 19, 2021
I was learning about transcription factors and RNA polymerase from Khan Academy to supplement Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s lectures on Human Behavioral Biology. As I understand:
It seems like we need transcription factors and RNA Polymerase to express genes and produce their corresponding proteins. But transcription factors and RNA Polymerase are proteins themselves. Thus, they must have come from their own respective genes. This seems like a “chicken and egg” problem.
How did early organisms with genetic material get around this problem?
This is one of the main features of the RNA World. What I mean by that is, RNA not only acts as a repository of genetic information, it also acts as an enzyme. This enzyme is known as Ribozyme. Ribozyme confers a self-replicating property to RNA, leading to the hypothesis that RNA might be the ancestor to the present day self-replicating genetic material.
Correct answer by Vasundhara Gray on March 19, 2021
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