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Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations
Glycine (Gly), NH(2)CH(2)COOH, is the simplest amino acid. Although it has not been directly detected in the interstellar gas-phase medium, it has been identified in comets and meteorites, and its synthesis in these environments has been simulated in terrestrial laboratory experiments. Likewise, con...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9030215/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35457069 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms23084252 |
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author | Rimola, Albert Balucani, Nadia Ceccarelli, Cecilia Ugliengo, Piero |
author_facet | Rimola, Albert Balucani, Nadia Ceccarelli, Cecilia Ugliengo, Piero |
author_sort | Rimola, Albert |
collection | PubMed |
description | Glycine (Gly), NH(2)CH(2)COOH, is the simplest amino acid. Although it has not been directly detected in the interstellar gas-phase medium, it has been identified in comets and meteorites, and its synthesis in these environments has been simulated in terrestrial laboratory experiments. Likewise, condensation of Gly to form peptides in scenarios resembling those present in a primordial Earth has been demonstrated experimentally. Thus, Gly is a paradigmatic system for biomolecular building blocks to investigate how they can be synthesized in astrophysical environments, transported and delivered by fragments of asteroids (meteorites, once they land on Earth) and comets (interplanetary dust particles that land on Earth) to the primitive Earth, and there react to form biopolymers as a step towards the emergence of life. Quantum chemical investigations addressing these Gly-related events have been performed, providing fundamental atomic-scale information and quantitative energetic data. However, they are spread in the literature and difficult to harmonize in a consistent way due to different computational chemistry methodologies and model systems. This review aims to collect the work done so far to characterize, at a quantum mechanical level, the chemical life of Gly, i.e., from its synthesis in the interstellar medium up to its polymerization on Earth. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9030215 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90302152022-04-23 Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations Rimola, Albert Balucani, Nadia Ceccarelli, Cecilia Ugliengo, Piero Int J Mol Sci Review Glycine (Gly), NH(2)CH(2)COOH, is the simplest amino acid. Although it has not been directly detected in the interstellar gas-phase medium, it has been identified in comets and meteorites, and its synthesis in these environments has been simulated in terrestrial laboratory experiments. Likewise, condensation of Gly to form peptides in scenarios resembling those present in a primordial Earth has been demonstrated experimentally. Thus, Gly is a paradigmatic system for biomolecular building blocks to investigate how they can be synthesized in astrophysical environments, transported and delivered by fragments of asteroids (meteorites, once they land on Earth) and comets (interplanetary dust particles that land on Earth) to the primitive Earth, and there react to form biopolymers as a step towards the emergence of life. Quantum chemical investigations addressing these Gly-related events have been performed, providing fundamental atomic-scale information and quantitative energetic data. However, they are spread in the literature and difficult to harmonize in a consistent way due to different computational chemistry methodologies and model systems. This review aims to collect the work done so far to characterize, at a quantum mechanical level, the chemical life of Gly, i.e., from its synthesis in the interstellar medium up to its polymerization on Earth. MDPI 2022-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9030215/ /pubmed/35457069 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms23084252 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Rimola, Albert Balucani, Nadia Ceccarelli, Cecilia Ugliengo, Piero Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations |
title | Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations |
title_full | Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations |
title_fullStr | Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations |
title_full_unstemmed | Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations |
title_short | Tracing the Primordial Chemical Life of Glycine: A Review from Quantum Chemical Simulations |
title_sort | tracing the primordial chemical life of glycine: a review from quantum chemical simulations |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9030215/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35457069 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms23084252 |
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