期刊
CHEMISTRY-A EUROPEAN JOURNAL
卷 23, 期 51, 页码 12668-12675出版社
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201702912
关键词
base pairing; orotic acid; orotidine; prebiotic systems chemistry; RNA world
资金
- NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program [NNX12AD62G, NNX15AL30G]
- NASA [52924, NNX12AD62G, 807502, NNX15AL30G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
The prebiotic synthesis of canonical nucleobases from HCN is a cornerstone for the RNA world hypothesis. However, their role in the primordial pathways to RNA is still debated. The very same process starting from HCN also gives rise to orotic acid, which (via orotidine) plays a crucial role in extant biology in the de novo synthesis of uridine and cytidine, the informational base-pairs in RNA. However, orotidine itself is absent in RNA. Given the prebiotic and biological relevance of orotic acid vis-a-vis uracil, we investigated orotidine-containing RNA oligonucleotides and show that they have severely compromised base-pairing properties. While not unexpected, these results suggest that the emergence of extant RNA cannot just be a consequence of the plausible prebiotic formation of its chemical constituents/building blocks. In combination with other investigations on alternative prebiotic nucleobases, sugars, and linkers, these findings imply that the selection of the components of extant RNA occurred at a higher hierarchical level of an oligomer/polymer based on its functional propertiespointing to a systems chemistry emergence of RNA from a library of precursors.
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