system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Can life we haven't yet found, perhaps extraterrestrial, be made up of something other than DNA and cells?

Or does life in any form require DNA? Or is it not possible to know yet?
gpt
Life as we know it requires several things, including the ability to use energy, replicate, grow, etc. 

DNA (and RNA) are the only information encoding molecules known to us, but some proteins can perform self replication directly without needing DNA/RNA and hypothetical cell *ancestors* could have existed long before DNA (replicating lipid bubbles are one such theory). Complex life will likely need something to act as information storage and replication but it doesn't have to be DNA. RNA itself is interestign because given sufficient peptides RNA can replicate all by itself without all the extra baggage of a "cell"

Non-DNA based life is only theoretical at this point, but there is no reason all of the requirements for life "as we know it" could not be met with some sort of crystaline, sulphorous, ammonia, or who knows what else.