Support for RNA as the origin of life is provided by the synthesis of pyrimidine ribonucleotides under plausible prebiotic conditions
RNA can act as an informational polymer and can catalyse reactions, and this inspires a popular theory that the formation of RNA alone can explain the origin of life on earth. A key part of this intriguing puzzle is how the nucleotides that make up the RNA polymer could be formed from the small molecules present in a prebiotic world.
Now, John Sutherland and co-workers from the University of Manchester, UK, have shown that a pyrimidine ribonucleotide can indeed be assembled1 from plausibly prebiotic small molecules — cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycoaldehyde and glyceraldehyde — provided that inorganic phosphate is present at an early stage. Although sugars and pyrimidine bases have been formed previously from such a mixture, it had been difficult to reconcile this with the fact that ribose (the sugar) could not be formed selectively — particularly in the required five-membered-ring hemiacetal form — and that coupling of the free sugar and pyrimidine base was, at best, unfavourable.
Sutherland and co-workers show that phosphate can act as a buffer and catalyst in the formation of a pyrimidine nucleotide by an alternative route. Ultimately, the researchers hope to show the production of an RNA oligomer from a plausible prebiotic mixture.
References
Powner, M. W., Gerland, B. & Sutherland, J. D. Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions. Nature 459, 239–242 (2009).
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Davey, S. Forming phosphates. Nature Chem (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.275
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.275