Scientists find potential 'missing link' in chemistry that led to life on Earth
11/06/2017 02:30:00 PM
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth.
The present study is part of an ongoing effort by scientists around the world to find plausible routes for the epic
journey from pre-biological chemistry to cell-based biochemistry [Credit: MIT News]
Origins-of-life researchers have hypothesized that a chemical reaction called phosphorylation may have been crucial for the assembly of three key ingredients in early life forms: short strands of nucleotides to store genetic information, short chains of amino acids (peptides) to do the main work of cells, and lipids to form encapsulating structures such as cell walls. Yet, no one has ever found a phosphorylating agent that was plausibly present on early Earth and could have produced these three classes of molecules side-by-side under the same realistic conditions.
TSRI chemists have now identified just such a compound: diamidophosphate (DAP).
Read more at
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2017/11/scientists-find-potential-missing-link.html#bjFBexLDlLjAj12W.99
