From Chemical Memory to Genetic Machinery: A Synechite Framework for the Coevolution of Heredity and Cellular Organization

Modern genetic heredity depends on an integrated system in which DNA stores sequence information, replication copies it, transcription expresses it, and translation converts it into functional molecules. Yet these processes require molecular machinery whose own evolution depends on hereditary information, creating a fundamental problem for the origin of genetic systems. Here we examine this problem through the Synechite Framework, which proposes that early heredity emerged within persistent chemical organizations capable of retaining and transmitting organizational consequences before modern genetic inheritance existed. We propose that molecular heredity could have developed through increasing integration between chemical organization, molecular memory, copying, and catalytic function. RNA is considered the leading candidate for an early hereditary system because it can combine informational, structural, and catalytic roles, although a DNA-first pathway remains chemically and theoretically possible. We further consider two possible RNA-to-DNA transitions: prolonged functional overlap or a comparatively rapid selective takeover by a DNA-based hereditary system, followed by specialization of RNA toward catalytic and intermediary functions. The resulting framework predicts reciprocal evolution: increasing informational capacity should generate new organizational requirements, while organization should constrain and shape the evolution of hereditary molecules and their machinery. Genetic heredity is therefore interpreted not as the appearance of an isolated genome, but as the progressive integration of molecular memory into persistent chemical organization.