• DOI:10.1038/375772A0
Corpus ID: 4351012

An efficient prebiotic synthesis of cytosine and uracil

@article{Robertson1995AnEP,
  title={An efficient prebiotic synthesis of cytosine and uracil},
  author={M. P. Robertson and S. Miller},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1995},
  volume={375},
  pages={772-774}
}

M. P. Robertson, S. Miller

Published 1995

Chemistry

Nature

IN contrast to the purines1–3, the routes that have been proposed for the prebiotic synthesis of pyrimidines from simple precursors give only low yields. Cytosine can be synthesized from cyano-acetylene and cyanate4,5; the former precursor is produced from a spark discharge in a CH4/N2 mixture4,5 and is an abundant interstellar molecule6. But this reaction requires relatively high concentrations of cyanate (>0.1 M), which are unlikely to occur in aqueous media as cyanate is hydrolysed rapidly… CONTINUE READING

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