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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Discovery in space of ethanolamine, the simplest phospholipid head group
Contributor:
Rivilla, Víctor M.;
Jiménez-Serra, Izaskun;
Martín-Pintado, Jesús;
Briones, Carlos;
Rodríguez-Almeida, Lucas F.;
Rico-Villas, Fernando;
Tercero, Belén;
Zeng, Shaoshan;
Colzi, Laura;
de Vicente, Pablo;
Martín, Sergio;
Requena-Torres, Miguel A.
imprint:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1073/pnas.2101314118
ISSN:
0027-8424;
1091-6490
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:title>Significance</jats:title>
<jats:p>
The detection of ethanolamine (
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OH) in a molecular cloud in the interstellar medium confirms that a precursor of phospholipids is efficiently formed by interstellar chemistry. Hence, ethanolamine could have been transferred from the proto-Solar nebula to planetesimals and minor bodies of the Solar System and thereafter to our planet. The prebiotic availability of ethanolamine on early Earth could have triggered the formation of efficient and permeable amphiphilic molecules such as phospholipids, thus playing a relevant role in the evolution of the first cellular membranes needed for the emergence of life.
</jats:p>