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Radiolysis of adenine and its complementary bases in aqueous solutions and clay suspensions

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Abstract

The aim of this work is to establish whether the presence of a solid surface during the radiolysis of complementary nitrogenous bases (adenine, thymine, and uracil), such as a clay mineral, alters the bases’ stability in comparison with samples of these molecules without the mineral. An additional aim is to study the possible role of clays as protective agents for biologically relevant organic molecules in scenarios of early Earth. The results show that the adsorbed bases onto clay could receive higher irradiation doses with less decomposition than the samples without clay. The irradiation was carried out in a gamma source with irradiation doses up 280 kGy.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by PAPIIT (Grant No. IN226817). J.C. received supported from a CONACyT fellowship and from the Posgrado en Ciencias Químicas. We thank Chem. Claudia Camargo, M.Sc. Benjamin Leal, and Phys. Francisco Flores for their technical assistence. This work was carried out in ICN-UNAM. We thank to Adriana Meléndez-López for her advice of preparing co-adsorbed systems. We thank to the reviewers for their comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior, C.U. Delegación Coyoacán, 04510, Ciudad de Mexico, CDMX, Mexico

    Jessica Ramírez-Carreón, Sergio Ramos-Bernal & Alicia Negrón-Mendoza

  2. Programa de Maestría y Doctorado en Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Delegación Coyoacán, 04510, Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico

    Jessica Ramírez-Carreón

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  1. Jessica Ramírez-Carreón
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  2. Sergio Ramos-Bernal
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  3. Alicia Negrón-Mendoza
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Correspondence to Alicia Negrón-Mendoza.

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Ramírez-Carreón, J., Ramos-Bernal, S. & Negrón-Mendoza, A. Radiolysis of adenine and its complementary bases in aqueous solutions and clay suspensions. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 318, 2435–2442 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-6264-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-6264-8

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