A potential prebiotic route to adenine from hypoxanthine.

A possible reaction mechanism for the dehydration of glycinamide (3) and N,N'-diformylurea (4) yielding hypoxanthine (2) has been investigated. Furthermore, a potential prebiotic route converting hypoxanthine (2) into adenine (1) via phosphate activation followed by substitution reaction with NH3 was studied. This reaction mimics the proposed biochemical mechanism for the conversion of IMP to AMP.