This set of reactions could help uncover the nucleic acid predecessor to RNA, scientists say. The sugar ribose forms the backbone of RNA, the coworker--and nucleic acid ancestor--of DNA.

The central dogma or the directional flow of genetic information from a deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) template to a ribose nucleic acid (RNA) transcript, and finally into a functional protein, is ...

Ribose and related sugars from ultraviolet irradiation of interstellar ice analogs. Science, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/science.aad8137 ...

“If nature was challenged to make threose or ribose, threose is easier to make,” says Albert Eschenmoser, whose team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich first made TNA three ...