Carbon isotope evidence for the substrates and mechanisms of prebiotic synthesis in the early solar system

Meteorites contain prebiotic, bio-relevant organic compounds including amino acids. Their syntheses could result from diverse sources and mechanisms provide a window on the conditions materials present in early solar system. Here we constrain alanine’s synthetic history Murchison meteorite using site-specific 13C/12C measurements, reported relative to VPDB standard. The ?13CVPDB values of ?29 ± 10‰, 142 20‰, ?36 20‰ for carboxyl, amine-bound, methyl carbons, respectively, are consistent with Strecker synthesis interstellar-medium-derived aldehydes, ammonia, low-?13C nebular or CN. We report experimentally measured isotope effects associated synthesis, use them ?13C alanine precursors, which then construct model that predicts molecular-average 19 other prebiotic significance found if they were made by our proposed network. Most these predictions agree previous suggesting aldehydes and/or pre-solar CN have served as substrates wide range