Content area
One of the most commonly known paradigms for the origins of terrestrial life is the RNA world hypothesis, which posits that RNA emerged as the first informational polymer and that DNA is its direct descendant. However, hypothetical evolutionary precursors to RNA, or proto-RNA-type molecules, are of interest in the prebiotic chemistry space inasmuch as they present a more prebiotically plausible explanation for the evolution of nucleic acids. This work focuses on the use of the proto-Nucleic Acid Builder, an opensource software designed for the construction of alternative nucleic acid molecules from geometric first principles, to explore one such proto-RNA system and the development of a methodology to delimit the helical and torsional parameters that stable supramolecular assemblies of these proto-RNA molecules will be able to adopt, while also endeavoring to narrow the range of potential proto-RNA backbone candidates for the system. While the results shed light on factors of potential importance in the stability of the assemblies, further work is needed to construct conformers that align more closely with realistic expectations of backbone torsions.