Overview
- A June 27 Angewandte Chemie study confirmed diamidophosphate phosphorylates ribose faster than other pentoses under prebiotic conditions
- NMR spectroscopy revealed ribose reactions produce exclusively five-member ring structures matching the sugar backbone of modern RNA and DNA
- Mixed-sugar experiments showed DAP selectively enriched ribose and advanced it to a nucleotide-ready form while arabinose, lyxose and xylose stalled
- Researchers emphasize that these findings offer plausible prebiotic pathways without claiming definitively to explain RNA’s emergence
- Next steps involve replicating these phosphorylation processes inside primitive membrane-bound protocells to test their roles in driving growth or division