Achieving biopolymer synergy in systems chemistry

Modifying the Catalytic Activity of Lipopeptide Assemblies with Nucleobases

Biohybrid catalysts that operate in aqueous media are intriguing for systems chemistry. In this paper, we investigate whether control over the self-assembly of biohybrid catalysts can tune their properties. As a model, we use the catalytic activity of functional hybrid molecules consisting of a catalytic H-dPro-Pro-Glu tripeptide, derivatized with fatty acid and nucleobase moieties. This combination of simple biological components merged the catalytic properties of the peptide with the self-assembly of the lipid, and the structural ordering of the nucleobases. The biomolecule hybrids self-assemble in aqueous media into fibrillar assemblies and catalyze the reaction between butanal and nitrostyrene. The interactions between the nucleobases enhanced the order of the supramolecular structures and affected their catalytic activity and stereoselectivity. The results point to the significant control and ordering that nucleobases can provide in the self-assembly of biologically inspired supramolecular catalysts.

Spontaneous and Selective Peptide Elongation in Water Driven by Aminoacyl Phosphate Esters and Phase Changes

Nature chose phosphates to activate amino acids, where reactive intermediates and complex machinery drive the construction of polyamides. Outside of biology, the pathways and mechanisms that allow spontaneous and selective peptide elongation in aqueous abiotic systems remain unclear. Herein we work to uncover those pathways by following the systems chemistry of aminoacyl phosphate esters, synthetic counterparts of aminoacyl adenylates. The phosphate esters act as solubility tags, making hydrophobic amino acids and their oligomers soluble in water and enabling selective elongation and different pathways to emerge. Thus, oligomers up to dodecamers were synthesized in one flask and on the minute time scale, where consecutive additions activated autonomous phase changes. Depending on the pathway, the resulting phases initially carry nonpolar peptides and amphiphilic oligomers containing phosphate esters. During elongation and phosphate release, shorter oligomers dominate in solution, while the aggregated phase favors the presence of longer oligomers due to their self-assembly propensity. Furthermore we demonstrated that the solution phases can be isolated and act as a new environment for continuous elongation, by adding various phosphate esters. These findings suggest that the systems chemistry of aminoacyl phosphate esters can activate a selection mechanism for peptide bond formation by merging aqueous synthesis and self-assembly.

The protometabolic nature of prebiotic chemistry

The field of prebiotic chemistry has been dedicated over decades to finding abiotic routes towards the molecular components of life. There is nowadays a handful of prebiotically plausible scenarios that enable the laboratory synthesis of most amino acids, fatty acids, simple sugars, nucleotides and core metabolites of extant living organisms. The major bottleneck then seems to be the self-organization of those building blocks into systems that can self-sustain. The purpose of this tutorial review is having a close look, guided by experimental research, into the main synthetic pathways of prebiotic chemistry, suggesting how they could be wired through common intermediates and catalytic cycles, as well as how recursively changing conditions could help them engage in self-organized and dissipative networks/assemblies (i.e., systems that consume chemical or physical energy from their environment to maintain their internal organization in a dynamic steady state out of equilibrium). In the article we also pay attention to the implications of this view for the emergence of homochirality. The revealed connectivity between those prebiotic routes should constitute the basis for a robust research program towards the bottom-up implementation of protometabolic systems, taken as a central part of the origins-of-life problem. In addition, this approach should foster further exploration of control mechanisms to tame the combinatorial explosion that typically occurs in mixtures of various reactive precursors, thus regulating the functional integration of their respective chemistries into self-sustaining protocellular assemblies.

Dynamic exchange controls the assembly structure of nucleic-acid-peptide chimeras

Recent attempts to develop the next generation of functional biomaterials focus on systems chemistry approaches exploiting dynamic networks of hybrid molecules. This task is often found challenging, but we herein present ways for profiting from the multiple interaction interfaces forming Nucleic-acid-Peptide assemblies and tuning their formation. We demonstrate that the formation of well-defined structures by double-stranded DNA-peptide conjugates (dsCon) is restricted to a specific range of environmental conditions and that precise DNA hybridization, satisfying the interaction interfaces, is a crucial factor in this process. We further reveal the impact of external stimuli, such as competing free DNA elements or salt additives, which initiate dynamic interconversions, resulting in hybrid structures exhibiting spherical and fibrillar domains or a mixture of spherical and fibrillar particles. This extensive analysis of the co-assembly systems chemistry offers new insights into prebiotic hybrid assemblies that may now facilitate the design of new functional materials. We discuss the implications of these findings for the emergence of function in synthetic materials and during early chemical evolution.

Nonequilibrium Amyloid Polymers Exploit Dynamic Covalent Linkage to Temporally Control Charge-Selective Catalysis

Extant proteins exploit thermodynamically activated negatively charged coenzymes and hydrotropes to temporally access mechanistically important conformations that regulate vital biological functions, from metabolic reactions to expression modulation. Herein, we show that a short amyloid peptide can bind to a small molecular coenzyme by exploiting reversible covalent linkage to polymerize and access catalytically proficient nonequilibrium amyloid microphases. Subsequent hydrolysis of the activated coenzyme leads to depolymerization, realizing a variance of the surface charge of the assembly as a function of time. Such temporal change of surface charge dynamically modulates catalytic activities of the transient assemblies as observed in highly evolved modern-day biocatalysts.

Programming Hydrogels with Complex Transient Behaviors via Autocatalytic Cascade Reactions

It is challenging to design complex synthetic life-like systems that can show both autoevolution and fuel-driven transient behaviors. Here, we report a new class of chemical reaction networks (CRNs) to construct life-like polymer hydrogels. The CRNs are constituted of autocatalytic cascade reactions and fuel-driven reaction networks. The reactions start with only two compounds, that is, thiol of 4-arm-PEG-SH and thiuram disulfides, and undergo thiol oxidation (k₁), disulfide metathesis (k₂), and thionate hydrolysis-coupling reactions (k₃) subsequently, leading to a four-state autonomous transition of sol(I) → soft gel → sol(II) → stiff gel. Moreover, thiuram disulfides can be applied as a fuel to drive the repeated occurrence of metathesis and hydrolysis-coupling reactions, generating dissipative stiff gel → sol(II) → stiff gel cycles. Systematic kinetics studies reveal that the event and lifetime of every transient state could be delicately tailored-up by varying the thiuram disulfide concentration, pH of the system, and thiuram structures. Since the consecutive transient behaviors are precisely predictable, we envision the strategy's potential in guiding the molecular designs of autonomous and adaptive materials for many fields.

Conformationally engineering flexible peptides on silver nanoparticles

Molecular conformational engineering is to engineer flexible non-functional molecules into unique conformations to create novel functions just like natural proteins fold. Obviously, it is a grand challenge with tremendous opportunities. Based on the facts that natural proteins are only marginally stable with a net stabilizing energy roughly equivalent to the energy of two hydrogen bonds, and the energy barriers for the adatom diffusion of some metals are within a similar range, we propose that metal nanoparticles can serve as a general replacement of protein scaffolds to conformationally engineer protein fragments on the surface of nanoparticles. To prove this hypothesis, herein, we successfully restore the antigen-recognizing function of the flexible peptide fragment of a natural anti-lysozyme antibody on the surface of silver nanoparticles, creating a silver nanoparticle-base artificial antibody (Silverbody). A plausible mechanism is proposed, and some general principles for conformational engineering are summarized to guide future studies in this area.

•

A silver NP-based artificial antibody is created by conformational engineering

•

Function emerges on NPs from non-functional peptide by mimicking the protein folding

•

A general mechanism is proposed for the conformational engineering on metal NPs

Systems chemistry of peptide-assemblies for biochemical transformations

During the billions of years of the evolutionary journey, primitive polymers, involved in proto metabolic pathways with low catalytic activity, played critical roles in the emergence of modern enzymes with remarkable substrate specificity. The precise positioning of amino acid residues and the complex orchestrated interplay in the binding pockets of evolved enzymes promote covalent and non-covalent interactions to foster a diverse set of complex catalytic transformations. Recent efforts to emulate the structural and functional information of extant enzymes by minimal peptide based assemblies have attempted to provide a holistic approach that could help in discerning the prebiotic origins of catalytically active binding pockets of advanced proteins. In addition to the impressive sets of advanced biochemical transformations, catalytic promiscuity and cascade catalysis by such small molecule based dynamic systems can foreshadow the ancestral catalytic processes required for the onset of protometabolism. Looking beyond minimal systems that work close to equilibrium, catalytic systems and compartments under non-equilibrium conditions utilizing simple prebiotically relevant precursors have attempted to shed light on how bioenergetics played an essential role in chemical emergence of complex behaviour. Herein, we map out these recent works and progress where diverse sets of complex enzymatic transformations were demonstrated by utilizing minimal peptide based self-assembled systems. Further, we have attempted to cover the examples of peptide assemblies that could feature promiscuous activity and promote complex multistep cascade reaction networks. The review also covers a few recent examples of minimal transient catalytic assemblies under non-equilibrium conditions. This review attempts to provide a broad perspective for potentially programming functionality via rational selection of amino acid sequences leading towards minimal catalytic systems that resemble the traits of contemporary enzymes.

Nonequilibrium Catalytic Supramolecular Assemblies of Melamine- and Imidazole-Based Dynamic Building Blocks

The development of synthetic nonequilibrium systems has gathered increasing attention due to their potential to illustrate the dynamic, complex, and emergent traits of biological systems. Simple building blocks capable of interacting via dynamic covalent chemistry and physical assembly in a reaction network under nonequilibrium conditions can contribute to our understanding of complex systems of life and its origin. Herein, we have demonstrated the nonequilibrium generation of catalytic supramolecular assemblies from simple heterocycle melamine driven by a thermodynamically activated ester. Utilizing a reversible covalent linkage, an imidazole moiety was recruited by the assemblies to access a catalytic transient state that dissipated energy via accelerated hydrolysis of the activated ester. The nonequilibrium assemblies were further capable of temporally binding to a hydrophobic guest to modulate its photophysical properties. Notably, the presence of an exogenous aromatic base augmented the lifetime of the catalytic microphases, reflecting their higher kinetic stability.

Discovery of phosphotyrosine-binding oligopeptides with supramolecular target selectivity

Phage-display screening on self-assembled tyrosine-phosphate ligands enables the identification of oligopeptides selective to dynamic supramolecular targets, with the lead peptide showing a preferred hairpin-like conformation and catalytic activity.

Emergence of a Promiscuous Peroxidase Under Non-Equilibrium Conditions*

Herein, we report the substrate induced generation of a transient catalytic microenvironment from a single amino acid functionalized fatty acid in presence of a cofactor hemin. The catalytic state accessed under non-equilibrium conditions showed acceleration of peroxidase activity resulting in degradation of the substrate and subsequently led to disassembly. Equilibrated systems could not access the three-dimensional microphases and showed substantially lower catalytic activity. Further, the assembled state showed latent catalytic function (promiscuity) to hydrolyze a precursor to yield the same substrate. Consequently, the assembly demonstrated protometabolism by exploiting the peroxidase-hydrolase cascade to augment the lifetime and the mechanical properties of the catalytic state.

Dynamic lipid aptamers: non-polymeric chemical path to early life

A widespread dogma asserts that life could not have emerged without biopolymers - RNA and proteins. However, the widely acknowledged implausibility of a spontaneous appearance and proliferation of these complex molecules in primordial messy chemistry casts doubt on this scenario. A proposed alternative is "Lipid-First", based on the evidence that lipid assemblies may spontaneously emerge in heterogeneous environments, and are shown to undergo growth and fission, and to portray autocatalytic self-copying. What seems undecided is whether lipid assemblies have protein-like capacities for stereospecific interactions, a sine qua non of life processes. This Viewpoint aims to alleviate such doubts, pointing to growing experimental evidence that lipid aggregates possess dynamic surface configurations capable of stereospecific molecular recognition. Such findings help support a possible key role of lipids in seeding life's origin.

Dynamic Surface Layer Coiled Coil Proteins Processing Analog-to-Digital Information

Surface layer proteins perform multiple functions in prokaryotic cells, including cellular defense, cell-shape maintenance, and regulation of import and export of materials. However, mimicking the complex and dynamic behavior of such two-dimensional biochemical systems is challenging, and hence research has so far focused mainly on the design and manipulation of the structure and functionality of protein assemblies in solution. Motivated by the new opportunities that dynamic surface layer proteins may offer for modern technology, we herein demonstrate that immobilization of coiled coil proteins onto an inorganic surface facilitates complex behavior, manifested by reversible chemical reactions that can be rapidly monitored as digital surface readouts. Using multiple chemical triggers as inputs and several surface characteristics as outputs, we can realize reversible switching and logic gate operations that are read in parallel. Moreover, using the same coiled coil protein monolayers for derivatization of nanopores drilled into silicon nitride membranes facilitates control over ion and mass transport through the pores, thereby expanding the applicability of the dynamic coiled coil system for contemporary stochastic biosensing applications.

Peptide-Based Supramolecular Systems Chemistry

Peptide-based supramolecular systems chemistry seeks to mimic the ability of life forms to use conserved sets of building blocks and chemical reactions to achieve a bewildering array of functions. Building on the design principles for short peptide-based nanomaterials with properties, such as self-assembly, recognition, catalysis, and actuation, are increasingly available. Peptide-based supramolecular systems chemistry is starting to address the far greater challenge of systems-level design to access complex functions that emerge when multiple reactions and interactions are coordinated and integrated. We discuss key features relevant to systems-level design, including regulating supramolecular order and disorder, development of active and adaptive systems by considering kinetic and thermodynamic design aspects and combinatorial dynamic covalent and noncovalent interactions. Finally, we discuss how structural and dynamic design concepts, including preorganization and induced fit, are critical to the ability to develop adaptive materials with adaptive and tunable photonic, electronic, and catalytic properties. Finally, we highlight examples where multiple features are combined, resulting in chemical systems and materials that display adaptive properties that cannot be achieved without this level of integration.

Primitive selection of the fittest emerging through functional synergy in nucleopeptide networks

Many fundamental cellular and viral functions, including replication and translation, involve complex ensembles hosting synergistic activity between nucleic acids and proteins/peptides. There is ample evidence indicating that the chemical precursors of both nucleic acids and peptides could be efficiently formed in the prebiotic environment. Yet, studies on nonenzymatic replication, a central mechanism driving early chemical evolution, have focused largely on the activity of each class of these molecules separately. We show here that short nucleopeptide chimeras can replicate through autocatalytic and cross-catalytic processes, governed synergistically by the hybridization of the nucleobase motifs and the assembly propensity of the peptide segments. Unequal assembly-dependent replication induces clear selectivity toward the formation of a certain species within small networks of complementary nucleopeptides. The selectivity pattern may be influenced and indeed maximized to the point of almost extinction of the weakest replicator when the system is studied far from equilibrium and manipulated through changes in the physical (flow) and chemical (template and inhibition) conditions. We postulate that similar processes may have led to the emergence of the first functional nucleic-acid-peptide assemblies prior to the origin of life. Furthermore, spontaneous formation of related replicating complexes could potentially mark the initiation point for information transfer and rapid progression in complexity within primitive environments, which would have facilitated the development of a variety of functions found in extant biological assemblies.

Integration of photocatalytic and dark-operating catalytic biomimetic transformations through DNA-based constitutional dynamic networks

Nucleic acid-based constitutional dynamic networks (CDNs) have recently emerged as versatile tools to control a variety of catalytic processes. A key challenge in the application of these systems is achieving intercommunication between different CDNs to mimic the complex interlinked networks found in cellular biology. In particular, the possibility to interface photochemical ‘energy-harvesting’ processes with dark-operating ‘metabolic’ processes, in a similar way to plants, represents an up to now unexplored yet enticing research direction. The present study introduces two CDNs that allow the intercommunication of photocatalytic and dark-operating catalytic functions mediated by environmental components that facilitate the dynamic coupling of the networks. The dynamic feedback-driven intercommunication of the networks is accomplished via information transfer between the two CDNs effected by hairpin fuel strands in the environment of the system, leading to the coupling of the photochemical and dark-operating modules.

Nucleic acid-based constitutional dynamic networks (CDNs) enable control of various catalytic processes, but it is challenging to achieve intercommunication between different CDNs and by that mimic complex cell biology networks. Here, the authors report two CDNs that control the integration of photochemical and dark-operating processes, and show their intercommunication afforded by environmental components.

Signaling in Systems Chemistry: Programing Gold Nanoparticles Formation and Assembly Using a Dynamic Bistable Network

Living cells exploit bistable and oscillatory behaviors as memory mechanisms, facilitating the integration of transient stimuli into sustained molecular responses that control downstream functions. Synthetic bistable networks have also been studied as memory entities, but have rarely been utilized to control orthogonal functions in coupled dynamic systems. We herein present a new cascade pathway, for which we have exploited a well-characterized switchable peptide-based replicating network, operating far from equilibrium, that yields two alternative steady-state outputs, which in turn serve as the input signals for consecutive processes that regulate various features of Au nanoparticle shape and assembly. This study further sheds light on how bridging together the fields of systems chemistry and nanotechnology may open up new opportunities for the dynamically controlled design of functional materials.

Self-Assembly of Cyclic Dipeptides: Platforms for Functional Materials

Supramolecular self-assembled functional materials comprised of cyclic dipeptide building blocks have excellent prospects for biotechnology applications due to their exceptional structural rigidity, morphological flexibility, ease of preparation and modification. Although the pharmacological uses of many natural cyclic dipeptides have been studied in detail, relatively little is reported on the engineering of these supramolecular architectures for the fabrication of functional materials. In this review, we discuss the progress in the design, synthesis, and characterization of cyclic dipeptide supramolecular nanomaterials over the past few decades, highlighting applications in biotechnology and optoelectronics engineering.

Chemical control of peptide material phase transitions

Progressive solute-rich polymer phase transitions provide pathways for achieving ordered supramolecular assemblies. Intrinsically disordered protein domains specifically regulate information in biological networks via conformational ordering. Here we consider a molecular tagging strategy to control ordering transitions in polymeric materials and provide a proof-of-principle minimal peptide phase network captured with a dynamic chemical network.

Substrate initiated assembly of a dynamic chemical network.

Hydrogen-Bond Catalysis of Imine Exchange in Dynamic Covalent Systems

The reversibility of imine bonds has been exploited to great effect in the field of dynamic covalent chemistry, with applications such as preparation of functional systems, dynamic materials, molecular machines, and covalent organic frameworks. However, acid catalysis is commonly needed for efficient equilibration of imine mixtures. Herein, it is demonstrated that hydrogen bond donors such as thioureas and squaramides can catalyze the equilibration of dynamic imine systems under unprecedentedly mild conditions. Catalysis occurs in a range of solvents and in the presence of many sensitive additives, showing moderate to good rate accelerations for both imine metathesis and transimination with amines, hydrazines, and hydroxylamines. Furthermore, the catalyst proved simple to immobilize, introducing both reusability and extended control of the equilibration process.

Prebiotic Peptides: Molecular Hubs in the Origin of Life

The fundamental roles that peptides and proteins play in today's biology makes it almost indisputable that peptides were key players in the origin of life. Insofar as it is appropriate to extrapolate back from extant biology to the prebiotic world, one must acknowledge the critical importance that interconnected molecular networks, likely with peptides as key components, would have played in life's origin. In this review, we summarize chemical processes involving peptides that could have contributed to early chemical evolution, with an emphasis on molecular interactions between peptides and other classes of organic molecules. We first summarize mechanisms by which amino acids and similar building blocks could have been produced and elaborated into proto-peptides. Next, non-covalent interactions of peptides with other peptides as well as with nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates, metal ions, and aromatic molecules are discussed in relation to the possible roles of such interactions in chemical evolution of structure and function. Finally, we describe research involving structural alternatives to peptides and covalent adducts between amino acids/peptides and other classes of molecules. We propose that ample future breakthroughs in origin-of-life chemistry will stem from investigations of interconnected chemical systems in which synergistic interactions between different classes of molecules emerge.

Programmed Recognition between Complementary Dinucleolipids To Control the Self-Assembly of Lipidic Amphiphiles

One of the major goals in systems chemistry is to create molecular assemblies with emergent properties that are characteristic of life. An interesting approach toward this goal is based on merging different biological building blocks into synthetic systems with properties arising from the combination of their molecular components. The covalent linkage of nucleic acids (or their constituents: nucleotides, nucleosides and nucleobases) with lipids in the same hybrid molecule leads, for example, to the so-called nucleolipids. Herein, we describe nucleolipids with a very short sequence of two nucleobases per lipid, which, in combination with hydrophobic effects promoted by the lipophilic chain, allow control of the self-assembly of lipidic amphiphiles to be achieved. The present work describes a spectroscopic and microscopy study of the structural features and dynamic self-assembly of dinucleolipids that contain adenine or thymine moieties, either pure or in mixtures. This approach leads to different self-assembled nanostructures, which include spherical, rectangular and fibrillar assemblies, as a function of the sequence of nucleobases and chiral effects of the nucleolipids involved. We also show evidence that the resulting architectures can encapsulate hydrophobic molecules, revealing their potential as drug delivery vehicles or as compartments to host interesting chemistries in their interior.

The Informational Substrate of Chemical Evolution: Implications for Abiogenesis

A key aspect of biological evolution is the capacity of living systems to process information, coded in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and used to direct how the cell works. The overall picture that emerges today from fields such as developmental, synthetic, and systems biology indicates that information processing in cells occurs through a hierarchy of genes regulating the activity of other genes through complex metabolic networks. There is an implicit semiotic character in this way of dealing with information, based on functional molecules that act as signs to achieve self-regulation of the whole network. In contrast to cells, chemical systems are not thought of being able to process information, yet they must have preceded biological organisms, and evolved into them. Hence, there must have been prebiotic molecular assemblies that could somehow process information, in order to regulate their own constituent reactions and supramolecular organization processes. The purpose of this essay is then to reflect about the distinctive features of information in living and non-living matter, and on how the capacity of biological organisms for information processing was possibly rooted in a particular type of chemical systems (here referred to as autonomous chemical systems), which could self-sustain and reproduce through organizational closure of their molecular building blocks.

The Essence of Systems Chemistry

Systems Chemistry investigates the upkeep of specific interactions of an exceptionally broad choice of objects over longer periods of time than the average time of existence of the objects themselves. This maintenance of a dynamic state focuses on conditions where the objects are thermodynamically not very stable and should be rare or virtually inexistent. It does not matter whether they are homochirally enriched populations of chiral molecules, a specific composition of some sort of aggregate, supramolecules, or even a set of chemically relatively unstable molecules that constantly transform one into another. What does matter is that these specific interactions prevail in complex mixtures and eventually grow in numbers and frequency through the enhancing action of autocatalysis, which makes such systems ultimately resemble living cells and interacting living populations. Such chemical systems need to be correctly understood, but also intuitively described. They may be so complex that metaphors become practically more important, as a means of communication, than the precise and correct technical description of chemical models and complex molecular or supramolecular relations. This puts systems chemists on a tightrope walk of science communication, between the complex reality and an imaginative model world. This essay addresses, both, scientists who would like to read “A Brief History of Systems Chemistry”, that is, about its “essence”, and systems chemists who work with and communicate complex life-like chemical systems. I illustrate for the external reader a light mantra, that I call “to make more of it”, and I charily draw systems chemists to reflect upon the fact that chemists are not always good at drawing a clear line between a model and “the reality”: The real thing. We are in a constant danger of taking metaphors for real. Yet in real life, we do know very well that we cannot smoke with Magritte’s pipe, don’t we?

Triggered reversible substitution of adaptive constitutional dynamic networks dictates programmed catalytic functions

The triggered substitution of networks and their resulting functions play an important mechanism in biological transformations, such as intracellular metabolic pathways and cell differentiation. We describe the triggered, cyclic, reversible intersubstitution of three nucleic acid-based constitutional dynamic networks (CDNs) and the programmed catalytic functions guided by the interconverting CDNs. The transitions between the CDNs are activated by nucleic acid strand displacement processes acting as triggers and counter triggers, leading to the adaptive substitution of the constituents and to emerging catalytic functions dictated by the compositions of the different networks. The quantitative evaluation of the compositions of the different CDNs is achieved by DNAzyme reporters and complementary electrophoresis experiments. By coupling a library of six hairpins to the interconverting CDNs, the CDN-guided, emerging, programmed activities of three different biocatalysts are demonstrated. The study has important future applications in the development of sensor systems, finite-state logic devices, and selective switchable catalytic assemblies.

Folding, Assembly, and Persistence: The Essential Nature and Origins of Biopolymers

Life as we know it requires three basic types of polymers: polypeptide, polynucleotide, and polysaccharide. Here we evaluate both universal and idiosyncratic characteristics of these biopolymers. We incorporate this information into a model that explains much about their origins, selection, and early evolution. We observe that all three biopolymer types are pre-organized, conditionally self-complementary, chemically unstable in aqueous media yet persistent because of kinetic trapping, with chiral monomers and directional chains. All three biopolymers are synthesized by dehydration reactions that are catalyzed by molecular motors driven by hydrolysis of phosphorylated nucleosides. All three biopolymers can access specific states that protect against hydrolysis. These protected states are folded, using self-complementary interactions among recurrent folding elements within a given biopolymer, or assembled, in associations between the same or different biopolymer types. Self-association in a hydrolytic environment achieves self-preservation. Heterogeneous association achieves partner-preservation. These universal properties support a model in which life's polymers emerged simultaneously and co-evolved in a common hydrolytic milieu where molecular persistence depended on folding and assembly. We believe that an understanding of the structure, function, and origins of any given type of biopolymer requires the context of other biopolymers.