Adsorption of RNA on mineral surfaces and mineral precipitates

• Elisa Biondi,
• Yoshihiro Furukawa,
• Jun Kawai and
• Steven A. Benner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 393–404, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.42

• aragonite. These have relevance to the prebiotic stabilization of RNA, where such carbonate minerals are expected to have been abundant, as they appear to be today on Mars. Keywords: carbonates; natural minerals; origins of life; RNA adsorption; synthetic minerals; Introduction It has been nearly 70 years

• of life? Two approaches are possible. On one hand, we might build a collection of natural minerals, and then run experiments on them with biopolymers having prebiotic interest, such as RNA. Unfortunately, natural minerals vary in chemical composition from specimen to specimen, and certainly from

• the Periodic Table. Underlying these experiments is the following rationale: If the same trends are observed both in precipitated synthetic minerals as well as in natural minerals, and if radiolabeled molecules are partitioned consistently between two mineral species precipitated together, the effects