I find the concept of prions to be useful in understanding this. Ofc, prions are complex proteins and massively more complex and durable than any early life-precursor would have been, but they can fold other proteins into copies of themselves. Early protoliving assemblages could have been amino acid assemblages that generally tend to replicate through a few stages, and more effective/ more complicated versions of them were able to keep replicating and working together until eventually they could form something that would be considered living.
Teslapunk1891 t1_jboeonb wrote
Reply to comment by UnfinishedProjects in I just learned that the known shortest DNA in an “organism” is about 1700 base pairs in a certain virus. Is there a minimum amount of “code” required for an organism (or virus) to function in any capacity? by mcbergstedt
I find the concept of prions to be useful in understanding this. Ofc, prions are complex proteins and massively more complex and durable than any early life-precursor would have been, but they can fold other proteins into copies of themselves. Early protoliving assemblages could have been amino acid assemblages that generally tend to replicate through a few stages, and more effective/ more complicated versions of them were able to keep replicating and working together until eventually they could form something that would be considered living.