Radical Pathways for the Prebiotic Formation of Pyrimidine Bases from Formamide

TL;DRAbstract

The prebiotic formation of nucleobases, the building blocks of RNA/DNA, is of current interest. Highly reactive radical species present in the atmosphere under irradiation have been suggested to be involved in the prebiotic synthesis of nucleobases from formamide (FM). We studied several free radical reaction pathways for the synthesis of pyrimidine bases (cytosine, uracil, and thymine) from FM under cold conditions. These pathways are theoretically determined using density functional theory (DFT) computations to examine their kinetic and thermodynamic feasibilities. These free radical reaction pathways share some common reaction types such as H-rearrangement, (•)H/(•)OH/(•)NH2 radical loss, and intramolecular radical cyclization. The rate-determining steps in these pathways are characterized with low energy barriers. The energy barriers of the ring formation steps are in the range of 3-7 kcal/mol. Although DFT methods are known to significantly underestimate the barriers for addition

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