A high-yielding, strictly regioselective prebiotic purine nucleoside formation pathway

Abstract

Making RNA in the prebiotic world The RNA World hypothesis posits that RNA was one of the first self-replicating molecules leading to the origin of life. The nucleotide bases of RNA—A, U, C, and G—are chemically complex, and it has been unclear how the large purine bases A and G might have arisen on prebiotic Earth. Becker et al. show that the A and G bases can be synthesized easily and in high yield from prebiotically reasonable precursors, lending further support to the RNA World hypothesis. Science , this issue p. 833