Stabilization of ribofuranose by a mineral surface.

The existence of the ribose moiety in biomolecules poses two problems for prebiotic chemistry. First, the exclusive presence of the furanose isomer in RNA has to be accounted for since furanose is a minor form in solution and does not exist in crystals. Second, all D-ribose polymorphs are unstable in aqueous medium so that a stabilization mechanism has to be invoked.

Non-biological selectivity in amino acids polymerization on TiO₂ nanoparticles.

For the first, time a strong selectivity is evidenced in inorganic peptide synthesis. When an equimolar mixture of Ala and Arg monomers is added to the synthesis medium of TiO₂ nanoparticles from Ti(IV) isopropoxide in benzyl alcohol, the Ala-Arg dipeptide is observed by ¹³C NMR in the resulting solid, at the exclusion of other dipeptides or higher peptides.