Guanine-centric self-assembly of nucleotides in water: an important consideration in prebiotic chemistry.

Abstract Investigations of plausible prebiotic chemistry on early Earth must consider not only chemical reactions to form more complex products such as proto-biopolymers but also reversible, molecular self-assembly that would influence the availability, organization, and sequestration of reactant molecules. The self-assembly of guanosine compounds into higher-order structures and lyotropic liquid crystalline “gel” phases through formation of hydrogen-bonded guanine tetrads (G-tetrads) is one such consideration that is particularly relevant to an RNA-world scenario. G-tetrad-based gelation has been well studied for individual guanosine compounds and was recently observed in mixtures of guanosine with 5′-guanosine monophosphate (GMP) as well. The present work investigates the self-assembly of GMP in the presence of the other RNA nucleotides. Effects of the total concentration and relative proportion of the nucleotides in the mixtures, the form (disodium salt vs. free acid) of the nucleotides, temperature, p...