LINK<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n“The origin of the molecular building blocks of life is a central question in science. A few \u03b1-amino acids, such as glycine, the simplest proteinogenic amino acid, have been detected in meteorites and comets, indicating an extraterrestrial origin for some prebiotic molecules. However, the formation of peptides, short chains of \u03b1-amino acids linked by peptide bonds, has remained unresolved under astrophysical conditions. Here we show that the building blocks of proteins can form in interstellar ice analogues exposed to ionizing radiation without the presence of liquid water. Using isotopically labelled glycine irradiated with protons at cryogenic temperatures, we detect the formation of glycylglycine, the simplest dipeptide, along with deuterated and undeuterated water as by-products. The formation of peptide bonds is confirmed by infrared spectroscopy and high-resolution mass spectrometry, which also reveal the production of other complex organic species. These findings demonstrate a non-aqueous route to peptide formation under space-like conditions and suggest that such molecules could form in the cold interstellar medium and be incorporated into forming planetary systems. Our results challenge aqueous-centric models of early biochemical evolution and broaden potential settings for the origins of life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alfred Thomas Hopkinson, Ann Mary Wilson, Joe Pitfield, Alejandra Traspas Mui\u00f1a, Rich\u00e1rd R\u00e1cz, Duncan V. Mifsud, P\u00e9ter Herczku, Gerg\u00f6 Lakatos, B\u00e9la Sulik, Zolt\u00e1n Juh\u00e1sz, S\u00e1ndor Biri, Robert W. McCullough, Nigel J. Mason, Carsten Scavenius, Liv…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,576],"tags":[1865,2857,5173,149,1135,1346,2856],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40016,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40015\/revisions\/40016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}