Alanine enantiomers in the Murchison meteorite (original) (raw)

Nature volume 394, page 236 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Engel and Macko1 have reported that alanine indigenous to the Murchison meteorite has an l-enantiomer excess of about 33%. Furthermore, they reported very similar δ15nitrogen values for l-alanine and d-alanine; these values are quite high in comparison with those of terrestrial amino acids. On this basis, they argued that contamination of the meteorite by terrestrial l-alanine can be ruled out because, if it contributed to the l-enantiomer excess, the lower 15N content of terrestrial l-alanine would significantly lower the δ15N value that they observed for l-alanine.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

$199.00 per year

only $3.90 per issue

Buy this article

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Additional access options:

Figure 1: Total ion chromatogram (Chirasil-l-Val, 50 m×025 mm, Alltech) of amino acids (N -trifluoroacetyl isopropyl esters) from a desalted Murchison water extract.

The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

References

  1. Engel, M. & Macko, S. A. Nature 389, 265–268 (1997).
    Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
  2. Kvenvolden, K. et al. Nature 228, 923–926 (1970).
    Article ADS CAS Google Scholar
  3. Cronin, J. R. & Pizzarello, S. Science 275, 951–955 (1997).
    Google Scholar
  4. Cronin, J. R. & Pizzarello, S. Adv. Space Res. 3, 5–18 (1983).
    Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, 85287-1604, Arizona, USA
    S. Pizzarello & J. R. Cronin

Authors

  1. S. Pizzarello
  2. J. R. Cronin

Rights and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pizzarello, S., Cronin, J. Alanine enantiomers in the Murchison meteorite.Nature 394, 236 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/28306

Download citation

This article is cited by