#ribose — Public Fediverse posts

Sugars are essential #biomolecules, serving as metabolic fuels, nucleic acid backbone components and structural or energy-storage polymers.

A central question in origin-of-life research is how monosaccharides formed on the primitive Earth, as laboratory experiments under #prebiotic conditions yield insufficient concentrations.

The detection of #ribose, #glucose and other monosaccharides in #asteroids and #meteorites suggests an exogenous origin, possibly in the interstellar medium (ISM) before meteoritic parent-body formation.

However, no #sugar has been observed in the ISM so far.

Now astronomers report the discovery of #erythrulose, a chiral four-carbon ketose, in the ISM.

Erythrulose appears to be at least eight times more abundant than analogous three-carbon sugars, which remain undetected in our ultrasensitive observations.

Quantum chemical and astrochemical models indicate that erythrulose forms efficiently on interstellar dust grains from simpler two-carbon aldehydes and alcohols.

As ketoses readily isomerize into aldoses in aqueous conditions, interstellar erythrulose could have contributed to the sugar inventory available for early metabolic and replication processes.

#astrobiology #astronomy
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02905-7

#BBC:
"
'This changes everything'. Scientists find ingredients for life on Earth in asteroid sample returned from space

Ribose and glucose detected in pristine dust samples from the asteroid Bennu
"
".. milestone: offering strong support to the idea that Earth’s early chemistry may have had cosmic origins."

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/ribose-glucose-detected-asteroid-bennu

6.2.2026

#Asteroid #Bennu #glucose #Glukose #Leben #Life #OSIRISREx #Probenrückführung #Raumfahrt #Raumsonde #Ribose #SampleReturn #SpaceFlight #sugar #Zucker

All the essential ingredients to kick-start #life as we know it have now been found in samples from the #asteroid #Bennu.

Asteroids could have delivered all the prerequisites for life to Earth – and perhaps elsewhere.

In 2020, OSIRIS-REx mission extracted samples from Bennu, an asteroid that was orbiting the #sun between Mars and Jupiter, and returned the samples to Earth in 2023.

Since then, small amounts of the 121 grams collected have been sent out to labs across the globe for analysis, so specialists in detecting each type of biological compound could set to work.

The first studies revealed the presence of #water, #carbon and several organic molecules. Next came the detection of amino acids, formaldehyde and all five of the nucleobases found in #RNA and #DNA, as well as phosphates.

However, this isn’t quite enough to put together the molecules that carry genetic information.

Now, scientists have revealed the presence of #ribose, as well as other sugars, including lyxose, xylose, arabinose, glucose and galactose.

#astrobiology
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506650-asteroid-bennu-carries-all-the-ingredients-for-life-as-we-know-it/

Paper by Furukawa et al. (2025): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01838-6

Adenosine, a #biochemical that is found in cells and is essential for many processes. Adenosine is made up of an adenine nitrogenous base linked to a #ribose sugar #molecule. It is involved in the #biosynthesis and #replication of #DNA and #RNA, and is also a component of an #enzyme called S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) and cyano-cobalamin (vitamin B-12). #Adenosine was once thought to only modify #cardiovascular #physiology, but now it is known to have many other effects on physiology.