A new analysis of the ribosome has revealed that proteins were interacting with ribonucleic acids (RNA) long before the evolution of the ribosome as a “ribonucleoprotein machine.” RNA was thought to play the primary role in the first stages of molecular evolution, an idea called the “RNA world” hypothesis. Proteins, on the other hand, were thought to emerge after RNA. This hypothesis is now challenged after researchers subjected the universal protein and RNA components of the ribosome to rigorous molecular analyses and found that the world of nucleic acids could not have existed without being “tethered” to proteins.
