Amino Acid Modified RNA Bases as Building Blocks of an Early Earth RNA-Peptide World

Fossils of extinct species allow us to reconstruct the process of Darwinian evolution that led to the species diversity we see on Earth today. The origin of the first functional molecules able to undergo molecular evolution and thus eventually able to create life, are largely unknown. The most prominent idea in the field posits that biology was preceded by an era of molecular evolution, in which RNA molecules encoded information and catalysed their own replication. This RNA world concept stands against other hypotheses, that argue for example that life may have begun with catalytic peptides and primitive metabolic cycles. The question whether RNA or peptides were first is addressed by the RNA-peptide world concept, which postulates a parallel existence of both molecular species. A plausible experimental model of how such an RNA-peptide world may have looked like, however, is absent. Here we report the synthesis and physicochemical evaluation of amino acid containing adenosine bases, which are closely related to molecules that are found today in the anticodon stem-loop of tRNAs from all three kingdoms of life. We show that these adenosines lose their base pairing properties, which allow them to equip RNA with amino acids independent of the sequence context. As such we may consider them to be living molecular fossils of an extinct molecular RNA-peptide world.     

化学计量学在生命科学研究中的应用

对近十年来化学计量学在生命科学领域相关研究中的应用进行了综述,主要对其在DNA、蛋白质及氨基酸这三大生命物质有关研究中的使用展开了评述和讨论,参考文献59篇。     

Nanostructuration of CoSi by mechanical milling and mechanical alloying

CoSi is an inexpensive thermoelectric material for medium temperature (200–500 °C). Its power factor is as large as the state of the art materials; however, its thermal conductivity is too large. Then, improving its thermoelectric performances implies increasing the scattering of phonons, which can be performed by nanostructuring the material. In this paper we investigate the effect of nanostructuration on the structure, microstructure, lattice dynamics and stability of CoSi. We obtained powders of about 13 nm by mechanical milling bulk CoSi for only four hours or by mechanical alloying pure elements for twelve hours. Nanostructuration induces a 0.1% expansion of the lattice parameter. Raman spectroscopy, associated to ab initio calculations, highlights the effectiveness of nanostructuration on phonon scattering, showing a reduction of the phonon relaxation time by as much as 80%. Powders are stable up to 450 °C; then grains coarsen and a partial degradation of the material occurs, probably due to silicon sublimation. Our results indicate that nanostructuration should be considered when interested to reduce CoSi thermal conductivity.     

Shock Processing of Amino Acids Leading to Complex Structures—Implications to the Origin of Life

The building blocks of life, amino acids, are believed to have been synthesized in the extreme conditions that prevail in space, starting from simple molecules containing hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. However, the fate and role of amino acids when they are subjected to similar processes largely remain unexplored. Here we report, for the first time, that shock processed amino acids tend to form complex agglomerate structures. Such structures are formed on timescales of about 2 ms due to impact induced shock heating and subsequent cooling. This discovery suggests that the building blocks of life could have self-assembled not just on Earth but on other planetary bodies as a result of impact events. Our study also provides further experimental evidence for the ‘threads’ observed in meteorites being due to assemblages of (bio)molecules arising from impact-induced shocks.     

破乳剂对油水界面膜作用机理研究

研究了破乳剂存在下油膜寿命、油膜薄化速率以及油水界面性质与破乳效果的关系.结果表明,破乳剂使油水界面弹性降低,导致油水界面强度减弱,界面膜寿命变短,界面膜厚度变薄.当膜厚度变薄到一临界值时,膜破裂,导致破乳脱水.同种破乳剂,随着其浓度的增加,界面弹性降低.当浓度超过某一值时,界面弹性值基本不变.不同种破乳剂,界面弹性降低幅度越大,其破乳效果越好.界面弹性值可以很好解释破乳剂的脱水率变化规律.     

A High‐Voltage and Ultralong‐Life Sodium Full Cell for Stationary Energy Storage

Recently, there has been great interest in developing advanced sodium‐ion batteries for large‐scale application. Most efforts have concentrated on the search for high‐performance electrode materials only in sodium half‐cells. Research on sodium full cells for practical application has encountered many problems, such as insufficient cycles with rapid capacity decay, low safety, and low operating voltage. Herein, we present a layered P2‐Na_0.66Ni_0.17Co_0.17Ti_0.66O₂, as both an anode (ca. 0.69 V versus Na⁺/Na) and as a high‐voltage cathode (ca. 3.74 V versus Na⁺/Na). The full cell based on this bipolar electrode exhibits well‐defined voltage plateaus near 3.10 V, which is the highest average voltage in the symmetric cells. It also shows the longest cycle life (75.9 % capacity retention after 1000 cycles) in all sodium full cells, a usable capacity of 92 mAh g^?1, and superior rate capability (65 mAh g^?1 at a high rate of 2C).     

Microwave-assisted reaction of peptide formation by amino acid with phosphate:Exploration of the most possible channels for the origin of life

The formation of peptides and then protein by small abiological molecules clusters such as amino acid is a key stage in the origin of life[1]. More and more ex- perimental results showed that phosphate plays an important role in the formation of biomolecules in prebiotic chemical evolution. The principal reservoirs of biochemical energy are phosphates (such as ATP). The peculiar role of phosphates in contemporary life might suggest its essential role in prebiotic energy conversion, syntheses …     

A new inorganic-organic polymer for the passivation of thin film capacitors

Inorganic-organic polymers with barrier properties against water vapor, excellent electrical data (3, 2, R _D>10¹⁶ cm, E _D up to 400 V/µm) and good adhesion to various substrate materials have been developed. Tailored modifications of these materials provide an excellent protective coating for thin film capacitors. Several mm thick, expensive, encapsulations could be replaced by thin coatings (up to 10 µm). The polymer coating allows the use of thin film chip capacitors in surface-mount technology. As a measure for the efficiency of the coating, the capacitance decrease under controlled humidity has been used. The influence of the material composition, the type of catalyst during sol-gel processing and the curing conditions have been studied. Adhesion and water vapor permeation properties of the polymers and rheological properties of the coating solutions have been investigated. A protective coating is developed, which increases the withstandness of capacitors against humid conditions (90°C, 100% rel. humidity) by a factor of about 30 (compared to uncoated capacitors) and shows no crack formation during thermal cycling.     

β-Sheet-induced chirogenesis in polymerization of oligopeptides

The origin of long homochiral biopolymers in living systems has recently been the focus of intense research. In one particular research line, scientists studied, experimentally and theoretically, chiral amplification obtained during peptide formation by polymerization of amino acid building blocks. It was suggested that processes leading to temporal or spatial separation, and thus, to the growth of homochiral polymers at the expense of their heterochiral counterparts, can explain the chirality observed in larger molecules. We introduce a simple model and stochastic simulation for the polymerization of amino acids and β-sheet formation, showing the crucial effects of the β sheets on the distributions of peptide lengths. When chiral affinities are included, racemic β sheets of alternating homochiral strands lead to the formation of chiral peptides, the isotacticity of which increases with length, consistent with previous experimental results in aqueous solutions. The tendency to form isotactic peptides is shown for both initially racemic and initially nonracemic systems, as well as for closed and open systems. We suggest that these or similar mechanisms may explain the origin of chiroselectivity in prebiotic environments.