Tews & Meyers (2017)

A. Tews & Meyers (2017) "Self-Replicating [Viral] RNA"

Source citation: Tews, B. A., & Meyers, G. (2017). Self-replicating RNA. RNA Vaccines, 15-35.

Summary: Richard uncritically cites this study because it has "Self-replicating RNA" in the title, when in fact this study has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the origin of life, but concerns the use of "self-replicating" viral RNA in vaccine production. This "self-replicating [viral] RNA" cannot actually replicate itself, but requires a living cell to replicate; which, of course, we would not have prior to the origin of life. The viral RNA can only replicate with the help of proteins and cellular machinery, so it must be transferred into a living cell in a process known as transfection in order to replicate. It is, thus, completely irrelevant to the origin of life and doesn't help Richard's arguments in the least.

  • The "self-replicating RNA" in this study has nothing to do with the origin of life, but concerns viral RNA replication in vaccine design and production. The "self-replicating RNA derived from the genomes of positive strand RNA viruses" in this study is "self-replicating" in that “upon introduction into cells is able to promote a full replication cycle including release of infectious virus particles.” (Tews & Meyers 2017). It essentially contains all the information needed to direct its own synthesis, but like a blueprint without the corresponding factory assembly line, it cannot physically replicate itself, and, thus, needs viral and host cell "machinery" such as replicase and polymerase enzymes to "read" and "translate" the genetic information. 
  • Also, "[t]ranslation of this RNA leads to a polyprotein that is co-translationally and posttranslationally processed by viral and host cellular proteases." In other words, as stated above, it essentially contains all the information needed to replicate itself, but not quite. The protein products must be further processed by "viral and host cellular proteases" to become functional. The details are in the Tews & Meyers (2017) article Richard cites.

(Fig. 2, Tews & Meyers 2017)

"Figure 2: Lower part: From full length plasmids containing a eukaryotic promoter vRNA will be transcribed by the cellular machinery upon transfection of the cDNA construct. After export of the RNA into the cytoplasm its translation will provide the viral proteins necessary for replication....The resulting RNA is transfected into cells where it is translated. In all cases translation of the RNA within transfected cells generates the viral replicase proteins that are necessary and sufficient to initiate virus replication and production of viral particles." (Tews & Meyers 2017)

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