In a recent comment article for Nature Communications, Nicolas Hud (Center for Chemical Evolution at Georgia Tech) discusses the search for nucleotides that may have been present on the early Earth before the advent of RNA. Nucleotides found in RNA today are the product of evolution, and prior to the RNA World there may have been different (and many more) nucleotides present on the early Earth. Experimental studies are now showing that such ‘lost’ nucleotides can form in simulated environments that represent natural conditions believed to have been present on the prebiotic Earth. Hud discusses the current state of thought surrounding the Earth’s potential inventory of ancient nucleotides, the conditions that allowed for their formation, and the paths that led to the evolution of RNA.

The paper, “Searching for lost nucleotides of the pre-RNA World with a self-refining model of early Earth,” was published in the journal Nature Communications. The work was performed at the NSF/NASA Center for Chemical Evolution (CCE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. The CCE is a collaborative program supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the NASA Astrobiology Program.

This publication is part of the Early Earth Collection from Nature Communications, which includes additional papers by researchers supported by NASA Astrobiology.