High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation

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Publikace nespadá pod Ekonomicko-správní fakultu, ale pod Středoevropský technologický institut. Oficiální stránka publikace je na webu muni.cz.
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FERUS Martin NESVORNÝ David ŠPONER Jiří KUBELÍK Petr MICHALČÍKOVÁ Regina SHESTIVSKÁ Violetta ŠPONEROVÁ Judit CIVIŠ Svatopluk

Rok publikování 2015
Druh Článek v odborném periodiku
Časopis / Zdroj Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Fakulta / Pracoviště MU

Středoevropský technologický institut

Citace
www http://www.pnas.org/content/112/3/657.full.pdf
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1412072111
Obor Fyzikální chemie a teoretická chemie
Klíčová slova origin of life; asteroid impact; biomolecules; LIDB
Popis The coincidence of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) period and the emergence of terrestrial life about 4 billion years ago suggest that extraterrestrial impacts could contribute to the synthesis of the building blocks of the first life-giving molecules. We simulated the high-energy synthesis of nucleobases from formamide during the impact of an extraterrestrial body. A high-power laser has been used to induce the dielectric breakdown of the plasma produced by the impact. The results demonstrate that the initial dissociation of the formamide molecule could produce a large amount of highly reactive CN and NH radicals, which could further react with formamide to produce adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil. Based on GC-MS, high-resolution FTIR spectroscopic results, as well as theoretical calculations, we present a comprehensive mechanistic model, which accounts for all steps taking place in the studied impact chemistry. Our findings thus demonstrate that extraterrestrial impacts, which were one order of magnitude more abundant during the LHB period than before and after, could not only destroy the existing ancient life forms, but could also contribute to the creation of biogenic molecules.
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