Polypeptide formation in clusters of β-alanine amino acids by single ion impact

Patrick Rousseau (), Dariusz G. Piekarski, Michael Capron, Alicja Domaracka, Lamri Adoui, Fernando Martín, Manuel Alcamí, Sergio Díaz-Tendero () and Bernd A. Huber
Additional contact information
Patrick Rousseau: Normandie Univ, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CEA, CNRS, CIMAP
Dariusz G. Piekarski: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Michael Capron: Normandie Univ, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CEA, CNRS, CIMAP
Alicja Domaracka: Normandie Univ, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CEA, CNRS, CIMAP
Lamri Adoui: Normandie Univ, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CEA, CNRS, CIMAP
Fernando Martín: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Manuel Alcamí: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Sergio Díaz-Tendero: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Bernd A. Huber: Normandie Univ, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CEA, CNRS, CIMAP

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The formation of peptide bonds by energetic processing of amino acids is an important step towards the formation of biologically relevant molecules. As amino acids are present in space, scenarios have been developed to identify the roots of life on Earth, either by processes occurring in outer space or on Earth itself. We study the formation of peptide bonds in single collisions of low-energy He2+ ions (α-particles) with loosely bound clusters of β-alanine molecules at impact energies typical for solar wind. Experimental fragmentation mass spectra produced by collisions are compared with results of molecular dynamics simulations and an exhaustive exploration of potential energy surfaces. We show that peptide bonds are efficiently formed by water molecule emission, leading to the formation of up to tetrapeptide. The present results show that a plausible route to polypeptides formation in space is the collision of energetic ions with small clusters of amino acids.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17653-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-17653-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17653-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().