Scientist found Missing link in origin of life on earth

TNPSC Current Affairs - November 2017 by TNPSC Guru - for Mains

Scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in US  has found a compound called diamidophosphate (DAP), that may have played a major role origin of life on Earth.

About the findings:

• Scientist have speculated for long that the origins of life would require three main ingredients .Nucleosides to form RNA, chains of amino acids for cell function, and lipids to form cell walls and other structures.
• These three are the basic for all biological structures, so these three things to exist scientist believed a chemical reaction called Phosphorylation would have been occurred.
• However scientist never found a phosphorylation chemical agent existed on early Earth to perform these three crucial duty.
• Now the researchers have found a compound called diamidophosphate (DAP), which they believed that capable to facilitate a process called phosphorylation.
• They have tested the DAP’s capability to phosphorylate with organic compounds which included Nucleosides to form RNA, chains of amino acids for cell function, and lipids to form cell walls and other structures.
• All the tested organic compounds found in early earth which successfully reacted with diamidophosphate (DAP).