Japanese scientists: The building blocks of DNA came to Earth with meteorites
11Japanese scientists: The building blocks of DNA came to Earth with meteorites
Japanese scientists have made the exciting discovery that the source of life on Earth is in space. It was stated that pyrimidine nucleobases, the chemical building blocks involved in the formation of DNA and RNA, may have been transported to Earth by carbon-rich meteorites.
According to research published in the peer-reviewed journal "Nature Communications," pyrimidine nucleobases necessary to create DNA or RNA may have been brought to Earth by carbon-rich meteorites.
It is known that pyrimidine nucleobases containing cytosine, uracil, purine and thymine are required in the formation of DNA and RNA, and that only purine nucleobases and uracil exist in meteorites.
THREE SKY STONES ANALYZED
Using state-of-the-art analytical techniques, Yasuhiro Oba of Hokkaido University in Japan and several other researchers analyzed three carbon-rich meteorites, Murchison, Murray, and Tagish Lake, by optimizing nucleobases.
Thus, various pyrimidine nucleobases such as cytosine and thymine were identified for the first time, in addition to compounds such as guanine, adenine and uracil previously detected in meteorites.
It was the final finding of the research that the compounds in question might have been produced by photochemical reactions in the interstellar space and later joined to asteroids in the formation of the Solar System.
In the research, it was reported that the transport of pyrimidine nucleobases to Earth by meteorites may have played a role in the emergence of genetic functions for later life.