Examinando por Autor "Rey-Montejo, Marta"

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Detection of a four-carbon sugar in interstellar space
(Springer Nature, 2026-07-13) Jimenez-Serra, Izaskun; García de la Concepción, Juan; Cuppen, Herma; Rey-Montejo, Marta; Sanz-Novo, Miguel; Rivilla, Victor M.; Martín Pintado, J.; Megías, Andrés; Briones, C.; San Andrés, David; Colzi, Laura; Zeng, Shaoshan; Martín Ruiz, Sergio, Sergio; Salaris, Joseph; Martínez-Henares, Antonio; López-Gallifa, Álvaro; Requena Torres, Miguel Angel; Tercero, Belén; De Vicente, Pablo; Insausti Beiro, Aran; Alonso, Elena Rita; Cocinero, Emilio J.; European Commission (EC); Junta de Extremadura; Gobierno Vasco; European Research Council (ERC); Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (AvH); Comunidad de Madrid; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Sugars are essential biomolecules, serving as metabolic fuels, nucleic acid backbone components and structural or energy-storage polymers. A central question in origin-of-life research is how monosaccharides formed on the primitive Earth, as laboratory experiments under prebiotic conditions yield insufficient concentrations. The detection of ribose, glucose and other monosaccharides in asteroids and meteorites suggests an exogenous origin, possibly in the interstellar medium (ISM) before meteoritic parent-body formation. However, no sugar has been observed in the ISM so far. Here we report the discovery of erythrulose, a chiral four-carbon ketose, in the ISM. The detection was achieved through ultrasensitive, broadband spectral surveys of the Galactic Centre molecular cloud G+0.693−0.027, using the Yebes 40 m and IRAM 30 m telescopes. Erythrulose appears to be at least eight times more abundant than analogous three-carbon sugars, which remain undetected in our ultrasensitive observations. Quantum chemical and astrochemical models indicate that erythrulose forms efficiently on interstellar dust grains from simpler two-carbon aldehydes and alcohols. As ketoses readily isomerize into aldoses in aqueous conditions, interstellar erythrulose could have contributed to the sugar inventory available for early metabolic and replication processes.