期刊
SCIENCE
卷 370, 期 6518, 页码 865-+出版社
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.abd5680
关键词
-
资金
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [EP/K004980/1, EP/M507970/1, EP/P020410/1]
- Simons Foundation [318881FY19, 493895]
- Volkswagen Foundation [94743]
- EPSRC [EP/K004980/1, EP/P020410/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Peptide biosynthesis is performed by ribosomes and several other classes of enzymes, but a simple chemical synthesis may have created the first peptides at the origins of life. alpha-Aminonitriles-prebiotic alpha-amino acid precursors-are generally produced by Strecker reactions. However, cysteine's aminothiol is incompatible with nitriles. Consequently, cysteine nitrile is not stable, and cysteine has been proposed to be a product of evolution, not prebiotic chemistry. We now report a high-yielding, prebiotic synthesis of cysteine peptides. Our biomimetic pathway converts serine to cysteine by nitrile-activated dehydroalanine synthesis. We also demonstrate that N-acylcysteines catalyze peptide ligation, directly coupling kinetically stable-but energy-rich-alpha-amidonitriles to proteinogenic amines. This rare example of selective and efficient organocatalysis in water implicates cysteine as both catalyst and precursor in prebiotic peptide synthesis.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据