Computer simulations of Template-Directed RNA Synthesis driven by temperature cycling in diverse sequence mixtures

We present simulations of non-enzymatic template-directed RNA synthesis that incorporate primer extension, ligation, melting, and reannealing. Strand growth occurs over multiple heating/cooling cycles, producing strands of several hundred nucleotides in length, starting with random oligomers of 4 to 10 nucleotides. A strand typically grows by only 1 or 2 nucleotides in each cycle. Therefore, a strand is copied from many different templates, not …