Tuning the reactivity of nitriles using Cu(ii) catalysis - potentially prebiotic activation of nucleotides

Liu, Ziwei, Mariani, Angelica, Wu, Longfei, Ritson, Dougal, Folli, Andrea ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8913-6606, Murphy, Damien ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5941-4879 and Sutherland, John 2018. Tuning the reactivity of nitriles using Cu(ii) catalysis - potentially prebiotic activation of nucleotides. Chemical Science 9 (35) , pp. 7053-7057. 10.1039/C8SC02513D

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Abstract

During the transition from prebiotic chemistry to biology, a period of solution-phase, non-enzymatic activation of (oligo)nucleotides must have occurred, and accordingly, a mechanism for phosphate activation must have existed. Herein, we detail results of an investigation into prebiotic phosphate activation chemistry using simple, prebiotically available nitriles whose reactivity is increased by Cu2+ ions. Furthermore, although Cu2+ ions are known to catalyse the hydrolysis of phosphodiester bonds, we found this deleterious activity to be almost completely suppressed by inclusion of amino acids or dipeptides, which may suggest a productive relationship between protein and RNA from the outset.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Chemistry
Publisher:	Royal Society of Chemistry
ISSN:	2041-6520
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	8 October 2018
Date of Acceptance:	23 July 2018
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 21:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/115635

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