NUCLEOTIDE ANALOGS BASED ON PENTAERYTHRITOL - AN HYPOTHESIS

The synthesis of ribose and ribose-based nucleotides under reasonable prebiotic conditions has not been achieved. Glycerol has been suggested as a structural unit that might have preceded ribose in the evolutionary emergence of RNA. Template-directed oligomerizations of nucleotide analogs based on glycerol, however, have been only partially successful. Recent studies on the effect of ultraviolet irradiation of formaldehyde solutions have shown that the reduced sugar pentaerythritol is formed with great specificity. I argue that pentaerythritol is potentially capable of being converted by simple chemistry into a series of nucleoside analogs related to barbituric acid. These analogs may be able to take part in nucleic acid-like interactions and could therefore be of potential interest as a new class of candidates as RNA precursors.