Toro Arévalo, Kathyria M.
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Publication Effects of additives on the prebiotic formation of depsipeptide oligomers, precursors of proto-polypeptides(2018) Toro Arévalo, Kathyria M.; Guzmán Martínez, Aikomari; College of Arts and Sciences – Sciences; Pastrana Ríos, Belinda; Rivera, Nilka; Department of Chemistry; Almodóvar, Jorge L.The process by which the first peptides were formed is still unclear. A few hypotheses have been proposed, but still there are doubts on whether they were possible during the prebiotic era. This lead some researchers to propose that polyesters are the ancestral precursor of the polypeptides. It has been proposed that the intermediate of this transition is a depsipeptide oligomer. Depsipeptides are peptide chains with one of more esters bonds replacing amide bonds. Some research has demonstrated that depsipeptide oligomers are possible precursors for the formation of peptides. The depsipeptide oligomers can be formed simulating the prebiotic earth conditions using dry downs. In this work, three monomers, (2-hydroxyacetyl)alanine (gA), ((S)- 2-hydroxypropanoyl)-L-alanine (aA) and ((R-2-hydroxypropanoyl)-D-valine (aV) were dried down with different additives to evaluate the formation of the depsipeptide oligomers. For gA, the additive that promoted the formation of longer depsipeptide oligomers was 2-Hydroxypidridine; inorganic salt, magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) had the cleanest reaction, and interestingly, magnesium chloride (MgCl2) had a negative effect. In the case of aA and aV, the additives did not have any significant effect in the formation of longer oligomers. These results demonstrate that depsipeptide oligomers can be formed in the presence of a variety of organic aromatic heterocyclic molecules, which are in accord with prebiotic earth conditions.