Prebiotic Synthesis of Activated Amino Acids

摘要

About four billion years ago chemical processes occurring on the primitive Earth yielded molecules that had the ability to make copies of themselves (i.e., replicate). These rudimentary replicating molecules eventually developed into today s life that uses both protein and DNA molecules for replication. Since the DNA of today s life is too complex to have been chemically made on the primitive Earth, the first replicating systems may have been composed solely of small proteins, called peptides. Peptides are good candidates for the first replicating molecules because they are constructed from very simple building blocks-activated amino acid molecules that could have been made by chemical processes on the primitive Earth.