title: A new family of extraterrestrial amino acids in the Murchison meteorite.
abstract: The occurrence of extraterrestrial organic compounds is a key for understanding prebiotic organic synthesis in the universe. In particular, amino acids have been studied in carbonaceous meteorites for almost 50 years. Here we report ten new amino acids identified in the Murchison meteorite, including a new family of nine hydroxy amino acids. The discovery of mostly C3and C4structural isomers of hydroxy amino acids provides insight into the mechanisms of extraterrestrial synthesis of organic compounds. A complementary experiment suggests that these compounds could be produced from aldehydes and ammonia on the meteorite parent body. This study indicates that the meteoritic amino acids could be synthesized by mechanisms in addition to the Strecker reaction, which has been proposed to be the main synthetic pathway to produce amino acids.
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth and Planetray Sciences, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshiki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Koga
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth and Planetray Sciences, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan. naraoka@geo.kyushu-u.ac.jp.|Research Center for Planetary Trace Organic Compounds, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan. naraoka@geo.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Naraoka
mesh_terms: D000447:Aldehydes / Q000737:chemistry; D000596:Amino Acids / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D000641:Ammonia / Q000737:chemistry; D019418:Evolution, Chemical; D019110:Meteoroids; D015394:Molecular Structure; D012996:Solutions
chemical_list: D000447:Aldehydes; D000596:Amino Acids; D012996:Solutions; D000641:Ammonia