Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Omran A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7460143 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Omran Arthur A Menor-Salvan Cesar C Springsteen Greg G Pasek Matthew M
Life (Basel, Switzerland) 20200728 8
Sugars are essential for the formation of genetic elements such as RNA and as an energy/food source. Thus, the formose reaction, which autocatalytically generates a multitude of sugars from formaldehyde, has been viewed as a potentially important prebiotic source of biomolecules at the origins of life. When analyzing our formose solutions we find that many of the chemical species are simple carboxylic acids, including α-hydroxy acids, associated with metabolism. In this work we posit that the st ...[more]