Interactions between amino acids and nucleotides in the prebiotic milieu

Abstract

In the study of chemical evolution we are interested in the path by which nucleic acids and proteins may have arisen under prebiotic conditions giving rise to those interactions which are generally postulated for the threshold of life. Although laboratory experiments have demonstrated that most of the building blocks of life can be generated from the raw material of the primitive atmosphere, in the genesis of polymers, however, the efforts have been less conclusive. It is reasonable to suppose that small peptides and small oligonucleotides may have interacted in the ‘primordial soup’ giving rise to the earliest association between nucleic acids and proteins. The beginnings of these processes could be related to the properties of individual amino acids and nucleotides. The interaction of oligomers with amino acids has been studied by the use of ion exchange and NMR spectroscopy. The observed affinities appear to depend on the given amino acid and the oligonucleotide chain length. The results so far suggest that direct amino-acid nucleotide interactions could have made a contribution to the early evolution of the Genetic Code.