Many modern researchers believe that life had been started not with DNA but RNA.  But they have gone through much difficulty for several decades to prove how the molecule’s four components could have occurred from the simpler compounds present during our early planet.

Recently, chemists have spotted simple reactions which can synthesize close cousins of nucleotides (Nucleotide is RNA’s component’s name) by using the raw materials on early Earth. It does not perfectly resemble them, but it is seemed that this creates the possibility for scientists to finish a plausible scenario about how life on Earth had begun.

 There are four kinds of nucleotides, each one consists of ring-shaped pentose, ribose, connected with one of four bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and uracil (U). Cytosine and uracil are structurally similar and known as pyrimidines collectively. And adenine and guanine resemble and are known as purines, too.

Matthew Powner and his colleagues discover the first likely chemical reactions in 2009 that may have happened: synthesizing pyrimidines on early Earth. But, to make purines, very different reactions, in different conditions, seemed necessary.

 Thereafter, in 2012, they found a new way to extend their earlier pyrimidine-making chemistry to create a purine-like thing. And on 19 May, they reported their new find into Nature Communications that a small amount of simple reactions transformed the aldehyde into two compounds resembling adenine- and guanine-containing nucleotide. But, they don’t perfectly resemble real purines.

Powner said, “He and his colleagues are now looking for solutions”. And if Powner and his colleagues succeed to fine solution making them perfectly resemble, the path from simple chemicals to life will be largely clearer.

May 27, 2017 Junsoo Kwon