Amazing stuff!
"... In a study reported in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, the scientists demonstrated a set of related reactions that could have enabled the transition, on the primordial Earth, from pre-life chemistry to the biochemistry of the first simple life forms. The reactions yield molecular building blocks that can be stitched into DNA-like strands, either with the help of reaction-speeding organic catalyst molecules that were plausibly present before life arose, or with more efficient enzyme catalysts that early life forms would have used. ..."
From the abstract:
"Polymerization of nucleic acids in biology utilizes 5′-nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) as substrates. The prebiotic availability of NTPs has been unresolved and other derivatives of nucleoside-monophosphates (NMPs) have been studied. However, this latter approach necessitates a change in chemistries when transitioning to biology. Herein we show that diamidophosphate (DAP), in a one-pot amidophosphorylation-hydrolysis setting converts NMPs into the corresponding NTPs via 5′-nucleoside amidophosphates (NaPs). The resulting crude mixture of NTPs are accepted by proteinaceous- and ribozyme-polymerases as substrates for nucleic acid polymerization. This phosphorylation also operates at the level of oligonucleotides enabling ribozyme-mediated ligation. This one-pot protocol for simultaneous generation of NaPs and NTPs suggests that the transition from prebiotic-phosphorylation and oligomerization to an enzymatic processive-polymerization can be more continuous than previously anticipated."
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