Major components of DNA found in meteorites

Yasuhiro Oba of Hokkaido University in Japan and his collaborators found that the pyrimidine bases that make up DNA and RNA may have been brought to Earth by carbon-rich meteorites

The composition of DNA and RNA is inseparable from two types of chemical components, also known as bases

So far, only purine bases and uracil have been found in meteorites

Using advanced analytical techniques for small-scale quantification optimized for bases, Oba and colleagues analyzed three carbon-rich meteorites: the Murchison, Murray, and Tagish Lake meteorites

In addition to compounds previously detected in meteorites, such as guanine, adenine, and uracil, they also discovered for the first time various pyrimidine bases, such as cytosine and thymine, in parts-per-billion concentrations

These compounds were present in concentrations similar to those predicted by experiments simulating conditions before the formation of the solar system

According to the authors, the findings suggest that such compounds may have been produced by photochemical reactions in the interstellar medium and subsequently incorporated into asteroids during the formation of the solar system

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