Journal of Molecular Evolution 1990-04-01

Polymerization of amino acids containing nucleotide bases.

A B Cheikh, L E Orgel

Index: J. Mol. Evol. 30 , 315, (1990)

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Abstract

We have prepared the nucleoamino acids 1-(3'-amino,3'-carboxypropyl)uracil (3) and 9-(3'-amino,3'-carboxypropyl)adenine (4) as (L)-enantiomers and as racemic mixtures. When 3 or 4 is suspended in water and treated with N,N'-carbonyldiimidazole, peptides are formed in good yield. The products formed from the (L)-enantiomers are hydrolyzed to the monomeric amino acids by pronase. Attempts to improve the efficiency of these oligomerizations by including a polyuridylate template in the reaction mixture were not successful. Similarly, oligomers derived from the (L)-enantiomer of 3 did not act as templates to facilitate the oligomerization of 4.