Spontaneous Polymerization of An Amino Acid Based Amphiphile at Air/water Interface Investigated by ESI-MS and Transmission IR Spectrometry

Self-assemblies of amphiphilic molecules are proposed to play a ubiquitous role at the early stages of evolution in the formation of primitive biopolymers.[1]As regard to the significance of N-phosphoryl amino acids as a model for the co-evolution of protein and nucleic acids at the prebiotic stage,[2]amphiphilic N-phosphoryl amino acids with two hydrophobic tails were synthesized.