TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying the wide diversity of extraterrestrial purine and pyrimidine nucleobases in carbonaceous meteorites
AU - Oba, Yasuhiro
AU - Takano, Yoshinori
AU - Furukawa, Yoshihiro
AU - Koga, Toshiki
AU - Glavin, Daniel P.
AU - Dworkin, Jason P.
AU - Naraoka, Hiroshi
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Shogo Tachibana (Univ. Tokyo, JAXA) for the discussion of meteoritic organic matter within the thermal history. We thank Dr. Robert Minard and Dr. Clifford N. Matthews’ research group at the University of Chicago for providing the Murchison meteorite and Prof. Reid R. Keays (Univ. Melbourne) for collecting and providing the Murchison soil samples. We also thank Mr. Tomoya Ishida (Kyushu Univ.) for the discussion of the wet-chemical procedure. This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP21H04501 and JP21H05414 (to Y.O.), JP20H02019 and 21KK0062 (to Y.T.), 21J00504 (to T.K), JP20H00202 and JP20H05846 (to H.N.), NASA Astrobiology Institute through award 13-13NAI7-0032 to the Goddard Center for Astrobiology (GCA), NASA’s Planetary Science Division Internal Scientist Funding Program through the Fundamental Laboratory Research (FLaRe) work package at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and a grant from the Simons Foundation (SCOL award 302497 to J.P.D.). This study was conducted in accordance with the Joint Research Promotion Project at the Institute of Low-Temperature Science, Hokkaido University (21G008 to Y.O., Y.T., and H.N.).
Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Shogo Tachibana (Univ. Tokyo, JAXA) for the discussion of meteoritic organic matter within the thermal history. We thank Dr. Robert Minard and Dr. Clifford N. Matthews? research group at the University of Chicago for providing the Murchison meteorite and Prof. Reid R. Keays (Univ. Melbourne) for collecting and providing the Murchison soil samples. We also thank Mr. Tomoya Ishida (Kyushu Univ.) for the discussion of the wet-chemical procedure. This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP21H04501 and JP21H05414 (to Y.O.), JP20H02019 and 21KK0062 (to Y.T.), 21J00504 (to T.K), JP20H00202 and JP20H05846 (to H.N.), NASA Astrobiology Institute through award 13-13NAI7-0032 to the Goddard Center for Astrobiology (GCA), NASA?s Planetary Science Division Internal Scientist Funding Program through the Fundamental Laboratory Research (FLaRe) work package at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and a grant from the Simons Foundation (SCOL award 302497 to J.P.D.). This study was conducted in accordance with the Joint Research Promotion Project at the Institute of Low-Temperature Science, Hokkaido University (21G008 to Y.O., Y.T., and H.N.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - The lack of pyrimidine diversity in meteorites remains a mystery since prebiotic chemical models and laboratory experiments have predicted that these compounds can also be produced from chemical precursors found in meteorites. Here we report the detection of nucleobases in three carbonaceous meteorites using state-of-the-art analytical techniques optimized for small-scale quantification of nucleobases down to the range of parts per trillion (ppt). In addition to previously detected purine nucleobases in meteorites such as guanine and adenine, we identify various pyrimidine nucleobases such as cytosine, uracil, and thymine, and their structural isomers such as isocytosine, imidazole-4-carboxylic acid, and 6-methyluracil, respectively. Given the similarity in the molecular distribution of pyrimidines in meteorites and those in photon-processed interstellar ice analogues, some of these derivatives could have been generated by photochemical reactions prevailing in the interstellar medium and later incorporated into asteroids during solar system formation. This study demonstrates that a diversity of meteoritic nucleobases could serve as building blocks of DNA and RNA on the early Earth.
AB - The lack of pyrimidine diversity in meteorites remains a mystery since prebiotic chemical models and laboratory experiments have predicted that these compounds can also be produced from chemical precursors found in meteorites. Here we report the detection of nucleobases in three carbonaceous meteorites using state-of-the-art analytical techniques optimized for small-scale quantification of nucleobases down to the range of parts per trillion (ppt). In addition to previously detected purine nucleobases in meteorites such as guanine and adenine, we identify various pyrimidine nucleobases such as cytosine, uracil, and thymine, and their structural isomers such as isocytosine, imidazole-4-carboxylic acid, and 6-methyluracil, respectively. Given the similarity in the molecular distribution of pyrimidines in meteorites and those in photon-processed interstellar ice analogues, some of these derivatives could have been generated by photochemical reactions prevailing in the interstellar medium and later incorporated into asteroids during solar system formation. This study demonstrates that a diversity of meteoritic nucleobases could serve as building blocks of DNA and RNA on the early Earth.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128940337&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85128940337&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-29612-x
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-29612-x
M3 - Article
C2 - 35473908
AN - SCOPUS:85128940337
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 13
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 2008
ER -