Exploring the Influence of Intermolecular Interactions in Prebiotic Chemistry Using Laser Spectroscopy and Calculations.

ABSTRACT: One of the most fascinating questions in chemistry is why nature chose CGAT as the alphabet of life. Very likely, such selection was the result of multiple factors and a long period of refinement. Here, we explore how the intermolecular interactions influenced such process, by characterizing the formation of dimers between adenine, theobromine and 4-aminopyrimidine. Using a combination of mass-resolved excitation spectroscopy and DFT calculations, we determined the structure of adenine-theobromine and 4-aminopyrimidine-theobromine dimers. The binding energy of these dimers is very close to the canonical adenine-thymine nucleobases. Likewise, the dimers are able to adopt Watson-Crick conformations. These findings seem to indicate that there were many options available to build the first ver

SUBMITTER: Camiruaga A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9299682 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature