Haertle T, Orgel L E
J Mol Evol. 1986;23(2):108-12. doi: 10.1007/BF02099904.
The co-condensation of guanosine- and cytidine-5'-phospho-2-methylimidazolide on various oligodeoxynucleotides containing C and G has been studied. We find that GC7 is an effective template for the incorporation of C into products of the form GnC, whereas C7G does not act as a template for C incorporation. The template C3GC3GC3GC3 directs the synthesis of complementary products, but the yield of long oligomers is very small. Templates in which G residues are contiguous or separated by a single C residue are ineffective, while templates containing the sequence GCCG are very inefficient. The significance of these findings in the context of prebiotic chemistry is discussed.
