ArticleNature chemistry2020
Harnessing chemical energy for the activation and joining of prebiotic building blocks.
Article in Nature chemistry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 44 papers.
What it found
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 95 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prebiotically Plausible Synthesis of N-Cyanoimidazole for Phosphate Activation and Templated RNA Ligation.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- Tracking Chirality Evolution in Tellurium Nanocrystals Via Polarization-Resolved Second-Harmonic Scattering.Nano letters · 2026Article
- Efficient Assembly of Functional RNA byJournal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- Review
- Amino acids catalyse RNA formation under ambient alkaline conditions.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Structural Enzymology, Phylogenetics, Differentiation, and Symbolic Reflexivity at the Dawn of Biology.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Large closed-basin lakes sustainably supplied phosphate during the origins of life.Science advances · 2025Article
- Selective Nonenzymatic Formation of Biologically Common RNA Hairpins.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2025Article
- Perspective: Protocells and the Path to Minimal Life.Journal of molecular evolution · 2024Review
- A potential role for RNA aminoacylation prior to its role in peptide synthesis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Prebiotic synthesis of dihydrouridine by photoreduction of uridine in formamide.Chemical communications (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- Manganese(II) promotes prebiotically plausible non-enzymatic RNA ligation reactions.Chemical communications (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- A Surface Hydrothermal Source of Nitriles and Isonitriles.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Base Pairing Promoted the Self-Organization of Genetic Coding, Catalysis, and Free-Energy Transduction.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- From the RNA-Peptide World: Prebiotic Reaction Conditions Compatible with Lipid Membranes for the Formation of Lipophilic Random Peptides in the Presence of Short Oligonucleotides, and More.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Cyclophospholipids Enable a Protocellular Life Cycle.ACS nano · 2023Article
- Ring Opening of Glycerol Cyclic Phosphates Leads to a Diverse Array of Potentially Prebiotic Phospholipids.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
- Thiophosphate photochemistry enables prebiotic access to sugars and terpenoid precursors.Nature chemistry · 2023Article
- Small-Molecule Organocatalysis Facilitates In Situ Nucleotide Activation and RNA Copying.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
- Triplet-Encoded Prebiotic RNA Aminoacylation.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Life is an out-of-equilibrium system sustained by a continuous supply of energy. In extant biology, the generation of the primary energy currency, adenosine 5'-triphosphate and its use in the synthesis of biomolecules require enzymes. Before their emergence, alternative energy sources, perhaps assisted by simple catalysts, must have mediated the activation of carboxylates and phosphates for condensation reactions. Here, we show that the chemical energy inherent to isonitriles can be harnessed to activate nucleoside phosphates and carboxylic acids through catalysis by acid and 4,5-dicyanoimidazole under mild aqueous conditions. Simultaneous activation of carboxylates and phosphates provides multiple pathways for the generation of reactive intermediates, including mixed carboxylic acid-phosphoric acid anhydrides, for the synthesis of peptidyl-RNAs, peptides, RNA oligomers and primordial phospholipids. Our results indicate that unified prebiotic activation chemistry could have enabled the joining of building blocks in aqueous solution from a common pool and enabled the progression of a system towards higher complexity, foreshadowing today's encapsulated peptide-nucleic acid system.
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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.