Divergent prebiotic synthesis of pyrimidine and 8-oxo-purine ribonucleotides

Shaun Stairs, Arif Nikmal, Dejan-Krešimir Bučar, Shao-Liang Zheng, Jack W. Szostak and Matthew W. Powner ()
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Shaun Stairs: University College London
Arif Nikmal: University College London
Dejan-Krešimir Bučar: University College London
Shao-Liang Zheng: Harvard University
Jack W. Szostak: Harvard University
Matthew W. Powner: University College London

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Understanding prebiotic nucleotide synthesis is a long standing challenge thought to be essential to elucidating the origins of life on Earth. Recently, remarkable progress has been made, but to date all proposed syntheses account separately for the pyrimidine and purine ribonucleotides; no divergent synthesis from common precursors has been proposed. Moreover, the prebiotic syntheses of pyrimidine and purine nucleotides that have been demonstrated operate under mutually incompatible conditions. Here, we tackle this mutual incompatibility by recognizing that the 8-oxo-purines share an underlying generational parity with the pyrimidine nucleotides. We present a divergent synthesis of pyrimidine and 8-oxo-purine nucleotides starting from a common prebiotic precursor that yields the β-ribo-stereochemistry found in the sugar phosphate backbone of biological nucleic acids. The generational relationship between pyrimidine and 8-oxo-purine nucleotides suggests that 8-oxo-purine ribonucleotides may have played a key role in primordial nucleic acids prior to the emergence of the canonical nucleotides of biology.

Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15270

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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15270

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