Replicating DNA differently

The replication reaction provides the molecular source for mutation, select ion and evolution in biology. This reaction also requires two additional st ages, transcription and translation, functioning cooperatively, to construc t the materials necessary to transfer the genome accurately to progeny. The se three stages together constitute biology's "Central Dogma", a term that highlights their presence in all autonomous replicating organisms. The temp late-directed synthesis that underpins each or these stages is dependent on molecular complementarity and the energies of self-assembly, suggesting it might now be possible to borrow from the structural tool set of biology to explore, diversify and even extend these reactions into different Structur al skeletons. Here we demonstrate, using simple ligation reactions, that it is conceptually possible to simplify the Central Dogma to a two-stage DNA replication process. Through this system DNA sequence information can be re ad into different molecular skeletons, skeletons with unique catalytic prop erties, that when extended, are amenable to Mutation, selection, and evolut ion of desired function.