Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35778563›Full record

ArticleNature chemistry2022

Prebiotic synthesis and triphosphorylation of 3'-amino-TNA nucleosides.

Daniel Whitaker, Matthew W Powner

Open access · greenAbstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature chemistry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
2.0field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Controlled Formation and Unusual Reactivity of Cyanohexatriyne (HCChemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026
    Article
  2. Review
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  4. Review
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Making nucleic acid monomers.Nature chemistry · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Daniel WhitakerDepartment of Chemistry, University College London, London, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0218-2341
Matthew W PownerDepartment of Chemistry, University College London, London, UK. matthew.powner@ucl.ac.uk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6368-3190
The London College · GBUniversity College London · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Nucleosides are essential to the emergence of life, and so their synthesis is a key challenge for prebiotic chemistry. Although amino-nucleosides have enhanced reactivity in water compared with ribonucleosides, they are assumed to be prebiotically irrelevant due to perceived difficulties with their selective formation. Here we demonstrate that 3'-amino-TNA nucleosides (TNA, threose nucleic acid) are formed diastereoselectively and regiospecifically from prebiotic feedstocks in four high-yielding steps. Phosphate provides an unexpected resolution, leading to spontaneous purification of the genetically relevant threo-isomer. Furthermore, 3'-amino-TNA nucleosides are shown to be phosphorylated directly in water, under mild conditions with cyclic trimetaphosphate, forming a nucleoside triphosphate (NTP) in a manner not feasible for canonical nucleosides. Our results suggest 3'-amino-TNA nucleosides may have been present on the early Earth, and the ease with which these NTPs form, alongside the inherent selectivity for the Watson-Crick base-pairing threo-monomer, warrants further study of the role they could play during the emergence of life.

Indexed as

Nucleic AcidsNucleosidesBase PairingWaterNucleic AcidsNucleosidesWater

Identifiers

PMID35778563
OpenAlexW4283741354

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.