ArticleOrigins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life2013
Selective stabilization of ribose by borate.
Article in Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Low-Molecular-Weight Polyols as Key Factors in Sulfur- and Borate-Mediated Protomembrane Formation Before the RNA World.Membranes · 2026Review
- Borate-Bridged Protolipids: A Prebiotic Route to Abiotic Membranes.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Synthesis and Biological Activity Characterization of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Using an Optimized Wheat Germ Cell-Free System.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- The second wave of formose research.BBA advances · 2025Article
- Hexose phosphorylation for a non-enzymatic glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway on early Earth.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Construction of an autocatalytic reaction cycle in neutral medium for synthesis of life-sustaining sugars.Chemical science · 2023Article
- Boron-assisted abiotic polypeptide synthesis.Communications chemistry · 2023Article
- Borate-guided ribose phosphorylation for prebiotic nucleotide synthesis.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Prebiotic Pathway from Ribose to RNA Formation.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Synthesis ofScience advances · 2021Article
- The Messy Alkaline Formose Reaction and Its Link to Metabolism.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Proto-Urea-RNA (Wöhler RNA) Containing Unusually Stable Urea Nucleosides.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2019Review
- Novel enzymatic single-nucleotide modification of DNA oligomer: prevention of incessant incorporation of nucleotidyl transferase by ribonucleotide-borate complex.Nucleic acids research · 2019Article
- Hydroxymethanesulfonate from Volcanic Sulfur Dioxide: A "Mineral" Reservoir for Formaldehyde and Other Simple Carbohydrates in Prebiotic Chemistry.Astrobiology · 2019Article
- Exploring the Emergence of RNA Nucleosides and Nucleotides on the Early Earth.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2018Review
- Origin of the RNA world: The fate of nucleobases in warm little ponds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- A Self-Assembled Aggregate Composed of a Fatty Acid Membrane and the Building Blocks of Biological Polymers Provides a First Step in the Emergence of Protocells.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2016Review
- Occurrence of Tourmaline in Metasedimentary Rocks of the Isua Supracrustal Belt, Greenland: Implications for Ribose Stabilization in Hadean Marine Sediments.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2016Article
- Effects of Silicate, Phosphate, and Calcium on the Stability of Aldopentoses.Origins of life and evolution of the biosphere : the journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life · 2016Article
- Nothing Boring About Boron.Integrative medicine (Encinitas, Calif.) · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In this study, borate was found to selectively increase the stability of ribose over other aldopentoses. Ribose is the only sugar present in both early RNA-based biochemistry and contemporary DNA-based life, and the stability of ribose is of fundamental concern for determining the origin of early RNA-based biochemistry. The formose reaction is a potential process in the prebiotic synthesis of ribose and its stereoisomers arabinose, xylose, and lyxose. Ribose is the least stable of these aldopentoses, raising the fundamental question of whether it was originally a component of primitive RNA or was selected through biotic processes. Borate is known to increase the stability of aldopentoses, but the specific differences in the stabilization achieved among different stereoisomers remain unclear. In this study, it was found that the stabilities of all of the tested pentoses increased with the concentration of added borate, but notably, the stability of ribose increased the most. The predominant formation of complexes between borate and ribose was verified, in agreement with previous studies. This borate complex formation might have sequestered ribose from the isomerization and decomposition reactions, resulting in its selective stabilization. These findings indicate that ribose could have accumulated in borate-rich environments on the early Earth and suggest that ribose-based nucleotides combined with phosphate and nucleobases formed abiotically.
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