Figure 6. Experiment for testing the possibility of cross-catalytic amplification in oligonucleotide replication via regeneration of the chimeric RDNA (C_T2) template.

(a) The sequences of oligonucleotides used in this investigation; C_T2^NH is the same as chimeric template C_T2 but with a single phosphoramidate (NP) link at the ligation junction. (b) Schematic representation of the hypothesis that the presence of chimeric ligands C_L7 and C_L8 (complementary to R_P2) could induce the regeneration of the chimeric template C_T2^NH leading to further production of R_P2. The concomitant release of C_T2 also creates the potential for another round of ligation reaction. (c) Comparison of the amount of R_P2 produced from the combination of C_T2+R_L3+R_L4 (1:5:5) versus the combination of C_T2+R_L3+R_L4+C_L7+C_L8 (1:5:5:2:2), demonstrating the regeneration of chimeric template C_T2^NH along with higher and increasing production of R_P2 in the latter combination. See supplementary Fig. 94 for experimental conditions. % yields were calculated with respect to the template C_T2. Experiments were run in duplicate and the error range is less than ± 5%; error bars represent standard deviation.