The Effect of Limited Diffusion and Wet–Dry Cycling on Reversible Polymerization Reactions: Implications for Prebiotic Synthesis of Nucleic Acids

A long-standing problem for the origins of life is that polymerization of many biopolymers, including nucleic acids and peptides, is thermodynamically unfavourable in aqueous solution. If bond making and breaking is reversible, monomers and very short oligomers predominate. Recent experiments have shown that wetting and drying cycles can overcome this problem and drive the formation of longer polymers. In the dry phase, bond formation is …