Summary
Histidyl-histidine (His-His) has been synthesized in a yield of up to 14.4% under plausible prebiotic conditions using histidine (His), cyanamide, and 4-amino-5-imidazole carboxamide. A trace amount of His trimer was also detected. Because the imidazole group of His is involved in a number of important enzymatic reactions, and His-His has been shown to catalyze the prebiotic synthesis of glycyl-glycine, we expect this work will stimulate further studies on the catalytic activities of simple His-containing peptides in prebiotic reactions.
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Shen, C., Mills, T. & Oró, J. Prebiotic synthesis of histidyl-histidine. J Mol Evol 31, 175–179 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02109493
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02109493