The reactivity of pyridine in cold interstellar environments: The reaction of pyridine with the CN radical

Heitkämper, Juliane; Suchaneck, Sarah; Concepción, Juan García de la; Kästner, Johannes; Molpeceres, Germán

doi:10.3389/fspas.2022.1020635

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…It is questionable if pyridine is readily available on ice grains, as this rather complex molecule was never detected in the interstellar medium. [117][118][119][120] Anyway, there needs to be an explanation as to why Smith et al [12] found picolin-isomers in dominating amounts in meteorites, and Oba et al [13,14] did not. They might be inherited from ice grain processes and either very heterogeneously distributed in the same parent body, or the CM2 chondrites originate from several different bodies with different chemical histories.…”

Section: Comparison To Measured Abundances In Meteorites and Asteroid...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Possible Ribose Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Paschek

Köhler

Pearce

et al. 2022

Life

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The origin of life might be sparked by the polymerization of the first RNA molecules in Darwinian ponds during wet-dry cycles. The key life-building block ribose was found in carbonaceous chondrites. Its exogenous delivery onto the Hadean Earth could be a crucial step toward the emergence of the RNA world. Here, we investigate the formation of ribose through a simplified version of the formose reaction inside carbonaceous chondrite parent bodies. Following up on our previous studies regarding nucleobases with the same coupled physico-chemical model, we calculate the abundance of ribose within planetesimals of different sizes and heating histories. We perform laboratory experiments using catalysts present in carbonaceous chondrites to infer the yield of ribose among all pentoses (5Cs) forming during the formose reaction. These laboratory yields are used to tune our theoretical model that can only predict the total abundance of 5Cs. We found that the calculated abundances of ribose were similar to the ones measured in carbonaceous chondrites. We discuss the possibilities of chemical decomposition and preservation of ribose and derived constraints on time and location in planetesimals. In conclusion, the aqueous formose reaction might produce most of the ribose in carbonaceous chondrites. Together with our previous studies on nucleobases, we found that life-building blocks of the RNA world could be synthesized inside parent bodies and later delivered onto the early Earth.

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Section: Comparison To Measured Abundances In Meteorites and Asteroid...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Possible Ribose Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Paschek

Köhler

Pearce

et al. 2022

Life

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“…However, no respective chromatography‐mass spectroscopy data were provided to support these findings. It is questionable if pyridine is readily available on ice grains, as this rather complex molecule was never detected in the interstellar medium [117–120] …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison To Measured Abundances In Meteorites and Asteroid...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Prebiotic Vitamin B₃ Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Paschek,

Lee,

Semenov

et al. 2023

ChemPlusChem

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Aqueous chemistry within carbonaceous planetesimals is promising for synthesizing prebiotic organic matter essential to all life. Meteorites derived from these planetesimals delivered these life building blocks to the early Earth, potentially facilitating the origins of life. Here, we studied the formation of vitamin B3 as it is an important precursor of the coenzyme NAD(P)(H), which is essential for the metabolism of all life as we know it. We propose a new reaction mechanism based on known experiments in the literature that explains the synthesis of vitamin B3. It combines the sugar precursors glyceraldehyde or dihydroxyacetone with the amino acids aspartic acid or asparagine in aqueous solution without oxygen or other oxidizing agents. We performed thermochemical equilibrium calculations to test the thermodynamic favorability. The predicted vitamin B3 abundances resulting from this new pathway were compared with measured values in asteroids and meteorites. We conclude that competition for reactants and decomposition by hydrolysis are necessary to explain the prebiotic content of meteorites. In sum, our model fits well into the complex network of chemical pathways active in this environment.

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Reactant Discovery with an Ab Initio Nanoreactor: Exploration of Astrophysical N-Heterocycle Precursors and Formation Pathways

Johansen,

Park,

Wang

et al. 2024

ACS Earth Space Chem.

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The incorporation of nitrogen atoms into cyclic compounds is essential for terrestrial life; nitrogen-containing (N-)heterocycles make up DNA and RNA nucleobases, several amino acids, B vitamins, porphyrins, and other components of biomolecules. The discovery of these molecules on meteorites with non-terrestrial isotopic abundances supports the hypothesis of exogenous delivery of prebiotic material to early Earth; however, there has been no detection of these species in interstellar environments, indicating that there is a need for greater knowledge of their astrochemical formation and destruction pathways. Here, we present results of simulations of gas-phase pyrrole and pyridine formation from an ab initio nanoreactor, a first-principles molecular dynamics simulation method that accelerates reaction discovery by applying non-equilibrium forces that are agnostic to individual reaction coordinates. Using the nanoreactor in a retrosynthetic mode, starting with the N-heterocycle of interest and a radical leaving group, then considering the discovered reaction pathways in reverse, a rich landscape of N-heterocycle-forming reactivity can be found. Several of these reaction pathways, when mapped to their corresponding minimum energy paths, correspond to novel barrierless formation pathways for pyridine and pyrrole, starting from both detected and hypothesized astrochemical precursors. This study demonstrates how first-principles reaction discovery can build mechanistic knowledge in astrochemical environments as well as in early Earth models such as Titan’s atmosphere where N-heterocycles have been tentatively detected.

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The reactivity of pyridine in cold interstellar environments: The reaction of pyridine with the CN radical

Cited by 5 publications

References 50 publications

Possible Ribose Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Possible Ribose Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Prebiotic Vitamin B₃ Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Reactant Discovery with an Ab Initio Nanoreactor: Exploration of Astrophysical N-Heterocycle Precursors and Formation Pathways

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The reactivity of pyridine in cold interstellar environments: The reaction of pyridine with the CN radical

Cited by 5 publications

References 50 publications

Possible Ribose Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Possible Ribose Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Prebiotic Vitamin B3 Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals

Reactant Discovery with an Ab Initio Nanoreactor: Exploration of Astrophysical N-Heterocycle Precursors and Formation Pathways

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Prebiotic Vitamin B₃ Synthesis in Carbonaceous Planetesimals