ArticleNature communications2016
Spontaneous formation and base pairing of plausible prebiotic nucleotides in water.
Article in Nature communications, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 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
49 citing papers in PubMed, 145 citations in OpenAlex.
- Continuous UV irradiation played an inconclusive role in selecting the canonical genetic alphabet.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Thermodynamic Constraints on Glycerol-Based Proto-Nucleotides: Phosphate Versus Arsenate in Early Backbone Evolution.Journal of molecular evolution · 2026Article
- Spontaneous Non-Catalyzed Molecular Reactions and Interactions in the Human Body: Biomedical Implications.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Complex and Messy Prebiotic Chemistry: Obstacles and Opportunities for an RNA World.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Selection for Molecularly Complementary Modules (MCMs) Drives the Origins and Evolution of Pleiofunctional, Epistatic Interactomes (PEIs).Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Borate-Guanosine Hydrogels and Their Hypothetical Participation in the Prebiological Selection of Ribonucleoside Anomers: A Computational (DFT) Study.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- The secret life of RNA and lipids.RNA biology · 2025Review
- Photosulfoxidation Catalysis as the Driving Principle for Deazaoxaflavin Photoredox Catalyst Formation.The Journal of organic chemistry · 2025Article
- Thermal Decomposition and Prebiotic Formation of Adenosine Phosphates in Simulated Early-Earth Evaporative Settings.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Origin of the RNA World in Cold Hadean Geothermal Fields Enriched in Zinc and Potassium: Abiogenesis as a Positive Fallout from the Moon-Forming Impact?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Prebiotic N-(2-Aminoethyl)-Glycine (AEG)-Assisted Synthesis of Proto-RNA?Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Article
- A Prebiotic Genetic Nucleotide as an Early Darwinian Ancestor for Pre-RNA Evolution.ACS omega · 2024Article
- The RNA-DNA world and the emergence of DNA-encoded heritable traits.RNA biology · 2024Article
- One-Pot Formation of Pairing Proto-RNA Nucleotides and Their Supramolecular Assemblies.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Vesicles, fibres, films and crystals: A low-molecular-weight-gelator [Au(6-thioguanosine)Soft matter · 2023Article
- Electron transport chains as a window into the earliest stages of evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Exploring the Lipid World Hypothesis: A Novel Scenario of Self-Sustained Darwinian Evolution of the Liposomes.Astrobiology · 2023Article
- Rethinking nucleic acids from their origins to their applications.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- High-throughput single-molecule quantification of individual base stacking energies in nucleic acids.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Isoxazole Nucleosides as Building Blocks for a Plausible Proto-RNA.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The RNA World hypothesis presupposes that abiotic reactions originally produced nucleotides, the monomers of RNA and universal constituents of metabolism. However, compatible prebiotic reactions for the synthesis of complementary (that is, base pairing) nucleotides and mechanisms for their mutual selection within a complex chemical environment have not been reported. Here we show that two plausible prebiotic heterocycles, melamine and barbituric acid, form glycosidic linkages with ribose and ribose-5-phosphate in water to produce nucleosides and nucleotides in good yields. Even without purification, these nucleotides base pair in aqueous solution to create linear supramolecular assemblies containing thousands of ordered nucleotides. Nucleotide anomerization and supramolecular assemblies favour the biologically relevant β-anomer form of these ribonucleotides, revealing abiotic mechanisms by which nucleotide structure and configuration could have been originally favoured. These findings indicate that nucleotide formation and selection may have been robust processes on the prebiotic Earth, if other nucleobases preceded those of extant life.
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.