This is more of a funny question to think about, but I am wondering, theoretically if it is possible in cells to synthesize nucleic acids(DNA, RNA) from proteins. What might this be useful for and how could it be working?
Good luck and thanks for your time.
In biological systems, the central dogma states that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins, and the reverse process, synthesizing DNA or RNA from proteins directly within cells, does not occur. It has not been observed, and I doubt some hidden reactions exist, as a lot of enzymes would be necessary for this process. Since we do whole genome sequencing today and also have extensive knowledge about genomes, I think we would have discovered these enzymes. If you think of reverse transcriptase, this has even been discovered before all these methods and data where available.
However, in the realm of theoretical and synthetic biology, scientists have been exploring the possibility of creating artificial biological systems where unconventional processes could take place.
In terms of how it might work, it would require the development of enzymes or chemical processes that would reverse work somehow like the processes necessary for the synthesis of proteins. You would need some enzymes (or reactions) that "read" the protein sequence and have a way of converting it into a DNA or RNA sequence. This has a lot of challenges connected to it, including the specificity (choosing the right sequence for a given amino acid), steric problems (amino acids vary quite a lot in size and charge), the degenerated code (choosing the right codons) as well as the stability of the resulting nucleic acids.
