Editing Nucleotide base (section)

==Prebiotic condensation of nucleobases with ribose==

In order to understand [[Abiogenesis|how life arose]], knowledge is required of chemical pathways that permit formation of the key building blocks of [[life]] under plausible [[abiogenesis|prebiotic conditions]]. According to the [[RNA world]] hypothesis, free-floating [[ribonucleotide]]s were present in the [[primordial soup]]. These were the fundamental molecules that combined in series to form [[RNA]]. Molecules as complex as RNA must have arisen from small molecules whose reactivity was governed by physico-chemical processes. RNA is composed of [[purine]] and [[pyrimidine]] nucleotides, both of which are necessary for reliable information transfer, and thus [[Darwinism|Darwinian]] [[evolution]]. Nam et al.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1073/pnas.1718559115 |pmc=5776833 |pmid=29255025 |doi-access=free|title=Abiotic synthesis of purine and pyrimidine ribonucleosides in aqueous microdroplets |year=2018 |last1=Nam |first1=Inho |last2=Nam |first2=Hong Gil |last3=Zare |first3=Richard N. |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=115 |issue=1 |pages=36–40 |bibcode=2018PNAS..115...36N }}</ref> demonstrated the direct condensation of nucleobases with ribose to give ribonucleosides in aqueous microdroplets, a key step leading to RNA formation. Similar results were obtained by Becker et al.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.aax2747 |pmid=31604305|title=Unified prebiotically plausible synthesis of pyrimidine and purine RNA ribonucleotides |year=2019 |last1=Becker |first1=Sidney |last2=Feldmann |first2=Jonas |last3=Wiedemann |first3=Stefan |last4=Okamura |first4=Hidenori |last5=Schneider |first5=Christina |last6=Iwan |first6=Katharina |last7=Crisp |first7=Antony |last8=Rossa |first8=Martin |last9=Amatov |first9=Tynchtyk |last10=Carell |first10=Thomas |journal=Science |volume=366 |issue=6461 |pages=76–82 |bibcode=2019Sci...366...76B |s2cid=203719976 |url=https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/71503/1/Science_Becker_2019.pdf }}</ref>