Early life could have relied on 'arsenic DNA'


	Early life could have relied on 'arsenic DNA'

Mohir

4-26-2008 6:29 AM

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tags:

life, dna, evolution, arsenic

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/57b2d494-49a4-4fb9-bedd-da2ca256cb4f/186D8E2B-E226-4AE1-A295-F7127C992DEC/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19826533.600-early-life-could-have-relied-on-arsenic-dna.html" href="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19826533.600-early-life-could-have-relied-on-arsenic-dna.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.newscientist.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19826533.600-early-life-could-have-relied-on-arsenic-dna.html">A deadly poison, arsenic is best known for snuffing out life. But could it have played a key role in the origins of life on Earth?</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19826533.600-early-life-could-have-relied-on-arsenic-dna.html">Felisa Wolfe-Simon of Harvard University thinks so because the toxin behaves so similarly to phosphorus, an essential ingredient in nearly all living things. Much more arsenic would have been available in Earth's primordial oceans than phosphorus. And while microbial activity was necessary later to unlock phosphorus from rocks, arsenic could have dissolved in water from hydrothermal vents.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19826533.600-early-life-could-have-relied-on-arsenic-dna.html"><P>"If you put arsenic in a test tube with adenosine, you immediately get lots of adenosine monoarsenate," which is structurally similar to adenine, the "A" letter in DNA's code of A, C, G and T, says Wolfe-Simon.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19826533.600-early-life-could-have-relied-on-arsenic-dna.html"><P>If early life did use arsenate, single-celled organisms with arsenate-based DNA may still be around today wherever phosphorus is scarce.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/186D8E2B-E226-4AE1-A295-F7127C992DEC/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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