Abstract
Activated derivatives of purine-containing deoxynucleoside- diphosphates spontaneously oligomerize to produce pyrophosphate- linked oligodeoxynucleotide analogues. These analogues are of potential interest as models of primitive, polynucleotide precursors. The efficiency of oligomerization (ImpdGpIm and ImpdApIm much greater than ImpdIpIm) appears to reflect a combination of stacking forces and the specific geometric orientations of the stacked units. Under favorable conditions, chain lengths greater than 20 have been obtained for oligomers containing pdGp in the absence of a template. In the presence of a complementary template, the activated derivatives of pdGp and pdAp oligomerize much more extensively. An acyclo-analogue of G has also been shown to undergo template-directed oligomerization on poly(C). These observations suggest the possibility that primitive information transfer might have evolved in much simpler systems and that this function was taken over by polynucleotides at a later stage in evolution.
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Abbreviations
- (A):
-
adenosine
- (C):
-
cytidine
- (U):
-
uridine
- (G):
-
guanosine
- (I):
-
inosine
- dA, dG, dI:
-
the 2′-deoxynucleosides of A, G, and I
- pdN (N is A, G, or I):
-
the 5′-phosphate of dN
- dNp:
-
the 3′-phosphate of dN
- ImpdNpIm:
-
the 3′, 5′-diphosphoimidazolide of N
- pN:
-
the 5′-phosphate of N
- 2-MeImpG:
-
the 2′-methylimidazolide of pG
- poly(A):
-
polyadenylic acid
- poly(U):
-
polyuridylic acid
- poly(C):
-
polycytidylic acid
- TEAB:
-
triethyl ammonium bicarbonate
- KEDTA:
-
the potassium salt of ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid
- DMF:
-
dimethyl formamide
- DMSO:
-
dimethyl sulfoxide
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For the previous paper in this series see Schwartz and Orgel, 1985a.
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Schwartz, A.W., Visscher, J., Bakker, C.G. et al. Nucleic acid-like structures II. Polynucleotide analogues as possible primitive precursors of nucleic acids. Origins Life Evol Biosphere 17, 351–357 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02386473
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02386473