ArticleNature communications2022
Thioesters provide a plausible prebiotic path to proto-peptides.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 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
31 citing papers in PubMed.
- The master molecule that built biology: How water shaped the chemistry of life.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Review
- Redox chemistry of early Earth and the origin of life.Communications chemistry · 2026Review
- Biomimetic Construction of Abiotic Membranes Through Acylation of Cationic Diamino Acids.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2026Article
- Stringent selection on kinetics of condensation reactions: early steps in chemical evolution.Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP · 2026Article
- Tailored Phosphate Leaving Groups Direct Pathway-Dependent Self-Assembly.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- Entropy-Driven Amino Acid-Based Coacervates with Enzyme-Free Metabolism and Prebiotic Robustness.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- Protopeptide backbone affects assembly in aqueous solutions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Synthesis of carbonyl-functionalized mercaptosilsesquioxane.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sugars to Acids via Thioesters: A Computational Study.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Aqueous Synthesis of Membrane Lipids via Amide Formation between Amphiphilic Amines and Thioacids.ChemSystemsChem · 2025Article
- Evolution of complex chemical mixtures reveals combinatorial compression and population synchronicity.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
- Thioesters Support Efficient Protein Biosynthesis by the Ribosome.ACS central science · 2025Article
- Promiscuity in Nature Extends to Central Protein Biosynthetic Machinery.ACS central science · 2025Article
- Precise placement of thioester bonds into sequence-controlled polymers containing ABAC-type units.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Selective peptide bond formation via side chain reactivity and self-assembly of abiotic phosphates.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Novel enantiopure δ-thiolactones: synthesis, structural characterization, and reactivity studies.RSC advances · 2024Article
- Rapid hydrolysis rates of thio- and phosphate esters constrain the origin of metabolism to cool, acidic to neutral environments.iScience · 2024Article
- The interplay between peptides and RNA is critical for protoribosome compartmentalization and stability.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- From Catalysis of Evolution to Evolution of Catalysis.Accounts of chemical research · 2024Article
- Construction and Performance Study of a Dual-Network Hydrogel Dressing Mimicking Skin Pore Drainage for Photothermal Exudate Removal and On-Demand Dissolution.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It is widely assumed that the condensation of building blocks into oligomers and polymers was important in the origins of life. High activation energies, unfavorable thermodynamics and side reactions are bottlenecks for abiotic peptide formation. All abiotic reactions reported thus far for peptide bond formation via thioester intermediates have relied on high energy molecules, which usually suffer from short half-life in aqueous conditions and therefore require constant replenishment. Here we report plausible prebiotic reactions of mercaptoacids with amino acids that result in the formation of thiodepsipeptides, which contain both peptide and thioester bonds. Thiodepsipeptide formation was achieved under a wide range of pH and temperature by simply drying and heating mercaptoacids with amino acids. Our results offer a robust one-pot prebiotically-plausible pathway for proto-peptide formation. These results support the hypothesis that thiodepsipeptides and thiol-terminated peptides formed readily on prebiotic Earth and were possible contributors to early chemical evolution.
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.