Recent experimental support has been generated for a model of prebiotic development that postulates a role for Amyloid-Nucleic Acid (ANA)-fibers as the earliest replicating entities capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. Here, this new model is compared with existing RNA-world models with a particular focus on trajectories that lead to evolutionary-beneficial interactions between nucleic acid, protein and lipid components. This analysis suggests a number of new areas for fruitful experimental studies.
Keywords: RNA-world; RNAzyme; amyloid; liposome; origin of life; prebiotic evolution; protocell.