Have we found the missing link1/4/2024 Today, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) does the job of linking amino acids into proteins, activated by an enzyme called aminoacyl tRNA synthetase. Nor did there seem to be a natural way for amino acids to string together and form proteins. There wasn't a good mechanism for putting nucleotides together to make RNA. The question: How did the nucleotides come together within the soupy chemicals to make RNA? John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Cambridge in England, published a study in May in the journal Nature Chemistry that showed that a cyanide-based chemistry could make two of the four nucleotides in RNA and many amino acids. RNA also needed nucleotides, made of phosphates and sugars. The idea was that the very first RNA molecules formed from collections of three chemicals: a sugar (called a ribose) a phosphate group, which is a phosphorus atom connected to oxygen atoms and a base, which is a ring-shaped molecule of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen atoms. (DNA is a double-stranded helix, whereas RNA is single-stranded.) Many scientists think the first RNA molecules existed in a primordial chemical soup - probably pools of water on the surface of Earth billions of years ago. Like DNA, RNA is a helix-shaped molecule that can store or pass on information. Current theories say life on Earth started in an " RNA world," in which the RNA molecule guided the formation of life, only later taking a backseat to DNA, which could more efficiently achieve the same end result. This link would bridge this gap in knowledge between the primordial chemical soup and the complex molecules needed to build life.
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