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Synthesis

Carbohydrate's Silicate Origins

Sugar-silicate complexes may have been key to early synthesis of stereospecific carbohydrates on Earth

by Jyllian N. Kemsley
February 22, 2010 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 88, Issue 8

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Silicate complexes stabilize formation of sugars such as threose from glycoaldehyde; the sugar groups can be liberated by hydrolysis.
Silicate complexes stabilize formation of sugars such as threose from glycoaldehyde; the sugar groups can be liberated by hydrolysis.

Sugar-silicate complexes may be key to the origin of complex, stereospecific carbohydrates on Earth, reports a group led by Northwestern University’s Joseph B. Lambert (Science 2010, 327, 984). Scientists have long looked at the formose reaction, in which formaldehyde is converted into sugars through a series of aldol reactions in basic solution, as a possible route for prebiotic sugar synthesis. But the products are racemic and unstable. Sugars can, however, form stable aqueous complexes with silicate, the major component of Earth’s crust and mantle. Lambert and colleagues experimented with adding formaldehyde, glycoaldehyde, and glyceraldehyde to sodium silicate solutions. Although the aldehydes on their own are too small to complex with the silicate, the researchers found that the molecules can oligomerize through base-catalyzed reactions to form larger molecules such as the sugar threose (C4H8O4). The larger sugars can in turn complex with and be stabilized by silicate if they have appropriate stereochemistry.

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