Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ju, Yun
• Zhang, Hong
• Wang, Wenxin
• Liu, Qianhui
• Yu, Kai
• Kan, Guangfeng
• Liu, Lijuan
• Jiang, Jie

Titel

Aqueous-Microdroplet-Driven Abiotic Synthesis of Ribonucleotides

Ist Teil von

• The journal of physical chemistry letters, 2022-01, Vol.13 (2), p.567-573

Ort / Verlag

United States: American Chemical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Phosphorylation for ribonucleotide formation is a critical step in the origin of life but has had limited success due to the thermodynamic and kinetic constraints in aqueous media. Here, we report that the production of ribonucleotides from ribonucleosides in the presence of monopotassium phosphate (KH2PO4) spontaneously proceeded in aqueous microdroplets under ambient conditions and without using a catalyst. A full set of ribonucleotides including adenosine monophosphate (AMP), guanosine monophosphate (GMP), uridine monophosphate (UMP), and cytidine monophosphate (CMP) were generated on the scale of a few milliseconds. The aqueous microdroplets could transfer the ribonucleotides to oligoribonucleotides and showed mutual compatibility for individual phosphorylation. Conditions established the dependence of the conversion ratio on the droplet size and suggested that the condensation reactions occurred at or near the microdroplets’ surface. This aqueous microdroplet approach also provides a route for elucidating phosphorylation chemistry in the prebiotic era.