Abstract
Mineral phosphate (apatite) is activated for the synthesis of nucleotides when dilute solutions containing nucleoside and ammonium oxalate are evaporated in its presence. A natural, igneous flourapatite was found to be even more effective in nucleotide synthesis than the more soluble hydroxylapatite. The phosphorylation is considerably more efficient if urea or cyanamide is also present. Hydrolysis of solutions of cyanogen to form oxalate and urea among other products is a spontaneous process that provides a geologically plausible model for nucleotide synthesis on the primitive earth.
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Schwartz, A.W., van der Veen, M., Bisseling, T. et al. Prebiotic nucleotide synthesis-demonstration of a geologically plausible pathway. Origins Life Evol Biosphere 6, 163–168 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01372401
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01372401