Issue 35, 2018

Tuning the reactivity of nitriles using Cu(ii) catalysis – potentially prebiotic activation of nucleotides

Abstract

During the transition from prebiotic chemistry to biology, a period of solution-phase, non-enzymatic activation of (oligo)nucleotides must have occurred, and accordingly, a mechanism for phosphate activation must have existed. Herein, we detail results of an investigation into prebiotic phosphate activation chemistry using simple, prebiotically available nitriles whose reactivity is increased by Cu2+ ions. Furthermore, although Cu2+ ions are known to catalyse the hydrolysis of phosphodiester bonds, we found this deleterious activity to be almost completely suppressed by inclusion of amino acids or dipeptides, which may suggest a productive relationship between protein and RNA from the outset.

Graphical abstract: Tuning the reactivity of nitriles using Cu(ii) catalysis – potentially prebiotic activation of nucleotides

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
07 jun 2018
Accepted
23 jul 2018
First published
25 jul 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 7053-7057

Tuning the reactivity of nitriles using Cu(II) catalysis – potentially prebiotic activation of nucleotides

Z. Liu, A. Mariani, L. Wu, D. Ritson, A. Folli, D. Murphy and J. Sutherland, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 7053 DOI: 10.1039/C8SC02513D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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