Formation of supramolecular assemblies and liquid crystals by purine nucleobases and cyanuric acid in water: implications for the possible origins of RNA

C Li; B J Cafferty; S C Karunakaran; G B Schuster; N V Hud

doi:10.1039/c6cp03047e

Formation of supramolecular assemblies and liquid crystals by purine nucleobases and cyanuric acid in water: implications for the possible origins of RNA

Phys Chem Chem Phys. 2016 Jul 27;18(30):20091-6. doi: 10.1039/c6cp03047e.

Authors

C Li¹, B J Cafferty², S C Karunakaran², G B Schuster², N V Hud²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. hud@chemistry.gatech.edu and State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, P. R. China.
² School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. hud@chemistry.gatech.edu.

PMID: 27253677
DOI: 10.1039/c6cp03047e

Abstract

The free nucleobases and mononucleotides of RNA do not form Watson-Crick base pairs in water, a fact that presents several challenges for the prebiotic synthesis of RNA. 2,6-Diaminopurine and adenosine-5'-monophosphate (AMP) are shown to form supramolecular assemblies with cyanuric acid in water. These assemblies and their propensity to form liquid crystals suggest a possible means by which non-covalent structures might have originally selected the shape of the Watson-Crick base pairs.