IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v459y2009i7244d10.1038_nature08013.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew W. Powner

    (School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

  • Béatrice Gerland

    (School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

  • John D. Sutherland

    (School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK)

Abstract

RNA is for life The origin of life on Earth required — at some point — the synthesis of a genetic polymer from simple chemicals. The leading candidate for this role is RNA, but although 'activated' ribonucleotide molecules (the building blocks of RNA) can polymerize without enzymes, no plausible route had been found by which the ribonucleotides could have formed. Now a team from the University of Manchester has found such a route. They also show that a widely held assumption about ribonucleotide synthesis — that the molecules formed from pre-existing sugar molecules and RNA bases — isn't necessary for RNA to have formed on prebiotic Earth.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew W. Powner & Béatrice Gerland & John D. Sutherland, 2009. "Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions," Nature, Nature, vol. 459(7244), pages 239-242, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:459:y:2009:i:7244:d:10.1038_nature08013
    DOI: 10.1038/nature08013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08013
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature08013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew P. Brady & Rosalie Tostevin & Nicholas J. Tosca, 2022. "Marine phosphate availability and the chemical origins of life on Earth," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Soyul Kwak & Jian Yeo & Sungmin Jung & Inho Nam, 2018. "Microdroplet Chemistry: Difference of Organic Reactions between Bulk Solution and Aqueous Microdroplets," Academic Journal of Polymer Science, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 1(1), pages 1-5, May.
    3. Zachary R. Adam & Albert C. Fahrenbach & Betul Kacar & Masashi Aono, 2018. "Prebiotic Geochemical Automata at the Intersection of Radiolytic Chemistry, Physical Complexity, and Systems Biology," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-21, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:459:y:2009:i:7244:d:10.1038_nature08013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.