Production of Guanine from NH4CN Polymerizations

Levy, Matthew; Miller, Stanley L.; Oró, J.

doi:10.1007/pl00006539

Cited by 80 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…3B. We have not tried to detect this intermediate by GC-MS technique due to its well-known hydrolytic instability, as demonstrated for example by Levy et al (38).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation

Ferus

Nesvorný

Šponer

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

157

151

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The coincidence of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) period and the emergence of terrestrial life about 4 billion years ago suggest that extraterrestrial impacts could contribute to the synthesis of the building blocks of the first life-giving molecules. We simulated the high-energy synthesis of nucleobases from formamide during the impact of an extraterrestrial body. A high-power laser has been used to induce the dielectric breakdown of the plasma produced by the impact. The results demonstrate that the initial dissociation of the formamide molecule could produce a large amount of highly reactive CN and NH radicals, which could further react with formamide to produce adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil. Based on GC-MS, high-resolution FTIR spectroscopic results, as well as theoretical calculations, we present a comprehensive mechanistic model, which accounts for all steps taking place in the studied impact chemistry. Our findings thus demonstrate that extraterrestrial impacts, which were one order of magnitude more abundant during the LHB period than before and after, could not only destroy the existing ancient life forms, but could also contribute to the creation of biogenic molecules.

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“…3B. We have not tried to detect this intermediate by GC-MS technique due to its well-known hydrolytic instability, as demonstrated for example by Levy et al (38).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation

Ferus

Nesvorný

Šponer

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

157

151

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“…Another prebiotic pathway for the formation of the adenine derivative 8-hydroxymethyladenine (HMA) as well as traces of adenine from HCN and formaldehyde, was experimentally demonstrated by Schwartz & Bakker (1989). Finally, it has been demonstrated recently that guanine can be produced from ammonium cyanide polymerisations (Levy et al 1999). …”

Section: N-heterocycles In Meteoritesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation and photostability of N-heterocycles in space

Peeters¹,

Botta

Charnley

et al. 2005

A&A

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Abstract. Nitrogen-containing cyclic organic molecules (N-heterocycles) play important roles in terrestrial biology, for example as the nucleobases in genetic material. It has previously been shown that nucleobases are unlikely to form and survive in interstellar and circumstellar environments. Also, they were found to be unstable against ultraviolet (UV) radiation. However, nucleobases were detected in carbonaceous meteorites, suggesting their formation and survival is possible outside the Earth. In this study, the nucleobase precursor pyrimidine and the related N-heterocycles pyridine and s-triazine were tested for UV stability. All three N-heterocycles were found to photolyse rapidly and their stability decreased with an increasing number of nitrogen atoms in the ring. The laboratory results were extrapolated to astronomically relevant environments. In the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) these N-heterocycles in the gas phase would be destroyed in 10-100 years, while in the Solar System at 1 AU distance from the Sun their lifetime would not extend beyond several hours. The only environment where small N-heterocycles could survive, is in dense clouds. Pyridine and pyrimidine, but not s-triazine, could survive the average lifetime of such a cloud. The regions of circumstellar envelopes where dust attenuates the UV flux, may provide a source for the detection of N-heterocycles. We conclude that these results have important consequences for the detectability of N-heterocycles in astronomical environments.

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“…Lower temperatures reduce RNA cleavage, both nonenzymatic (Li and Breaker 1999;Dallas et al 2004) and ribozyme-catalyzed (Tokumoto and Saigo 1992;Feig et al 1998;Nesbitt et al 1999), and some investigators have argued that early frozen oceans or lakes would be possible, even favorable, environments for the origin of life (Lazcano and Miller 1996;Levy et al 1999;Bada and Lazcano 2002). While lowered temperature reduces diffusion and generally slows reactions, the onset of freezing can accelerate some chemical and enzymatic processes that may have relevance to the RNA world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While lowered temperature reduces diffusion and generally slows reactions, the onset of freezing can accelerate some chemical and enzymatic processes that may have relevance to the RNA world. Examples include dehydration of 5-hydro-6-hydroxydeoxyuridine (Prusoff 1963;Butler and Bruice 1964), mutarotation of glucose (Kiovsky and Pincock 1966), tetramerization of hydrogen cyanide to form synthetic precursors of purines (Sanchez et al 1966;Levy et al 1999), pyrimidine and purine synthesis from ammonium cyanide (Miyakawa et al 2002), formation of dinucleotides from adenosine 2¢,3¢-cyclic phosphate (Renz et al 1971), polymerization of activated nucleoside 5¢-monophospate imidazolides (Stribling and Miller 1991;Monnard et al 2002;Trinks et al 2005), and ligation of phosphorimidazolides of short uridine oligomers (Sawai and Wada 2000). All of these reactions occur at temperatures moderately below the freezing point where solutes are not incorporated into the ice but become encapsulated and concentrated in liquid microinclusions between the ice crystals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ligation of the hairpin ribozyme in cis induced by freezing and dehydration

Kazakov¹,

Balatskaya²,

Johnston³

2006

RNA

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Although reducing the temperature slows most chemical reactions, freezing can stimulate some reactions by mechanisms that are only partially understood. Here we show that freezing stimulates the self-ligation (circularization) of linear forms of the hairpin ribozyme (HPR) containing 2¢,3¢-cyclic phosphate and 5¢-OH termini. Divalent metal ions (M 2+ ) are not required, but monovalent cations and anions at millimolar concentrations can have various effects on this reaction depending on the specific ion. Under optimal conditions, the observed rate of M 2+ -independent self-ligation reaches a peak (0.04 minC with a yield of~60% after 1 h. In contrast, no ligation occurs either at above 0 C or in solutions that remain unfrozen when supercooled to subzero temperatures. Under freezing conditions, the cleavage-ligation equilibrium strongly favors ligation. Besides freezing, evaporation of the aqueous solvent as well as the presence of ethanol at levels of 40% or above can also induce M 2+ -independent HPR ligation at 25 C. We argue that partial RNA dehydration, which is a common feature of freezing, evaporation, and the presence of ethanol, is a key factor supporting HPR ligation activity at both above-and below-freezing temperatures. In the context of the RNA world hypothesis, freezing-induced ligation is an attractive mechanism by which complex RNAs could have evolved under conditions in which RNA was relatively protected against degradation.

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Production of Guanine from NH4CN Polymerizations

Cited by 80 publications

References 18 publications

High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation

High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation

Formation and photostability of N-heterocycles in space

Ligation of the hairpin ribozyme in cis induced by freezing and dehydration

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