Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, UK, 247 667, India.
Interfield Laboratories, Plot no: C4, Green Industrial Park, Gambheeram Village, Anandapuram Mandal, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, 531163, India.
Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2019 Sep;49(3):147-162. doi: 10.1007/s11084-019-09585-6. Epub 2019 Aug 23.
The synthesis of prebiotic molecules from simple precursors is believed to be a crucial scheme in order to study the origin of life processes. The present study describes the one-pot synthesis of purine and pyrimidine nucleic acid bases in the presence of pre-biologically significant binary metal oxide nanoparticles, metal ferrites, namely NiFeO, CoFeO, CuFeO, ZnFeO and MnFeO. The products identified are cytosine, isocytosine, 4(3H)-pyrimidinone, adenine, hypoxanthine and purine. The ability of isocytosine (a constitutional isomer of cytosine) to recognize cytosine and guanine through normal and reversed Watson-Crick pairing respectively, demonstrates an important storyline for the genesis of ancient nucleic acids. The relevance of other synthesized nucleic acid bases with respect to the origin of life is also discussed. The divalent metal ions in iron oxide make it an appropriate catalytic system because it demonstrates excellent catalytic performance for the nucleic acid bases synthesis with significantly high yield, as compared to pure iron oxide and some other minerals like silica, alumina, manganese oxides and double metal cyanide complexes.
从简单的前体合成前生物分子被认为是研究生命过程起源的关键方案。本研究描述了在预生物意义重大的二元金属氧化物纳米粒子，即 NiFeO、CoFeO、CuFeO、ZnFeO 和 MnFeO 存在下嘌呤和嘧啶核酸碱基的一锅合成。鉴定出的产物是胞嘧啶、异胞嘧啶、4(3H)-嘧啶酮、腺嘌呤、次黄嘌呤和嘌呤。异胞嘧啶（胞嘧啶的结构异构体）通过正常和反向 Watson-Crick 配对分别识别胞嘧啶和鸟嘌呤的能力，为古代核酸的起源提供了一个重要的情节。还讨论了其他合成核酸碱基与生命起源的相关性。氧化铁中的二价金属离子使其成为一种合适的催化体系，因为与纯氧化铁和一些其他矿物质（如二氧化硅、氧化铝、锰氧化物和双金属氰化物配合物）相比，它在核酸碱基合成方面表现出优异的催化性能，产率显著提高。
