ArticleScientific reports2024
Reasons why life on Earth rarely makes fluorine-containing compounds and their implications for the search for life beyond Earth.
Article in Scientific reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 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
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Net fluorine atom transfer from the perspective of a PCET chemist.Chemical communications (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Direct Regioselective para-Fluorination via I(I)/I(III) Catalysis.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Decoding cryptic defluorinases through a latent generative sequence landscape.Chemical science · 2026Article
- Quantifying Ligand-to-Protein Distances in Complex Environments Using IntermolecularChembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2026Article
- Tracing the origins of molecular signals in food through integrative metabolomics and chemical databases.NPJ science of food · 2026Article
- Rongalite-mediated sequential homologative fluorination of oxindoles en route to 3-(fluoromethyl)-3-methylindolin-2-ones.RSC advances · 2026Article
- Fluorinated Radicals in Divergent Synthesis via Photoredox Catalysis.Accounts of chemical research · 2025Article
- Enzyme (α-Glucosidase, α-Amylase, PTP1B & VEGFR-2) Inhibition and Cytotoxicity of Fluorinated Benzenesulfonic Ester Derivatives of the 5-Substituted 2-Hydroxy-3-nitroacetophenones.International journal of molecular sciences · 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
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Life on Earth is known to rarely make fluorinated carbon compounds, as compared to other halocarbons. We quantify this rarity, based on our exhaustive natural products database curated from available literature. We build on explanations for the scarcity of fluorine chemistry in life on Earth, namely that the exclusion of the C-F bond stems from the unique physico-chemical properties of fluorine, predominantly its extreme electronegativity and strong hydration shell. We further show that the C-F bond is very hard to synthesize and when it is made by life its potential biological functions can be readily provided by alternative functional groups that are much less costly to incorporate into existing biochemistry. As a result, the overall evolutionary cost-to-benefit balance of incorporation of the C-F bond into the chemical repertoire of life is not favorable. We argue that the limitations of organofluorine chemistry are likely universal in that they do not exclusively apply to specifics of Earth's biochemistry. C-F bonds, therefore, will be rare in life beyond Earth no matter its chemical makeup.
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.