Summary
Cyclization of activated nucleotide analogues by intramolecular phosphodiester-bond formation is likely to compete very effectively with template-directed condensation except in the cases of ribo- and arabinonucleotides. This could have excluded derivatives of most sugars from growing polyribonucleotide chains and thus reduced chain-termination in prebiotic polynucleotide synthesis.
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Hill, A.R., Nord, L.D., Orgel, L.E. et al. Cyclization of nucleotide analogues as an obstacle to polymerization. J Mol Evol 28, 170–171 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02143509
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02143509