ArticleOrigins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life2007
A possible path to the RNA world: enantioselective and diastereoselective purification of ribose.
Article in Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, 2007. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Possible Enantioseparation of Racemic Ribose on Chiral Surface Formed by Adsorption of Nucleobases.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- On the Origin of Sugar Handedness: Facts, Hypotheses and Missing Links-A Review.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2022Review
- In silico ribozyme evolution in a metabolically coupled RNA population.Biology direct · 2015Article
- Theory of the origin, evolution, and nature of life.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2011Article
- The evolution of enzyme specificity in the metabolic replicator model of prebiotic evolution.PloS one · 2011Article
- Mineral surfaces, geochemical complexities, and the origins of life.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2010Review
- On the origin of life in the zinc world: 1. Photosynthesizing, porous edifices built of hydrothermally precipitated zinc sulfide as cradles of life on Earth.Biology direct · 2009Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A theoretical mechanism resulting in the prebiotic appearance of enantiopure ribose, which would be needed for the origin of RNA and the "RNA world" is proposed. The mechanism simultaneously explains the emergence of biological homochirality and could answer the question of why nucleic acids are based on ribose rather than another sugar. Cleavage of certain non-chiral mineral crystals is known to lead to formation of chiral surfaces. In a chromatography-like process a mixture of racemic carbohydrates originating from the formose reaction is proposed to have been separated on such a chiral surface. Monosaccharides interact with surfaces through their hydroxyl groups, either by hydrogen bond formation or complex formation with metal ions. alpha-Ribopyranose, which has all hydroxyl groups on one side of the ring, is known to interact more strongly than other sugars with surfaces, as corroborated by certain chromatographic and electrophoresis data. A similar scenario leading to enantiopure ribose is separation on a flat, but not necessarily chiral surface in the presence of a strong electric field capable of orienting highly polar derivatives of sugars.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.