Because of One Lousy Oxygen,RNA is less stable than DNA.
We have two great vaccines.One is kept in a regular freezer and the other is a mega freezer.The more stable DNA is not stable because they containRNA.What is it about this that makes sense?You need to navigate The Dreaded Chemistry Lesson From Hell for the answer.Enjoy.It's a lousy oxygen atom.
The instability of the Pfizer vaccine was recently written about by my colleague Dr. Alex Berezow.It might be a good idea in the interest of boring all of you.There is an idea to look at this instability at the level of the molecule.It should come as no surprise that it's time for TDCLFH!
There is a simple chemical reaction that breaks an ester bond by water and produces a carboxylic acid and alcohol.
Figure 1.A carboxylic acid and alcohol can be formed by hydrolysis.There are red boxes showing where the water has been added.The blue hatch line shows a broken bond.
The core of DNA andRNA can be hydrolyzed.The process is similar to that of esters.
Figure 2.There is hydrolysis of aphosphate ester.There are red squares that show where the water has been added.The blue hatch line shows a broken bond.
We're going from organic 101 to organic 401.Please be with me.I will be gentle.
For reasons best left unstated, when a hydroxyl group is either five or six atoms away from the C or P group, that reaction is taking place.The effect of anchimeric assistance can be significant.
I'll show you what this gibberish has to do with RNA if you haven't already done so.
The concept of neighboring group participation is shown in Figure 4.It doesn't make sense.Except it does.People hate chemistry because of this.
There are different representations of the same molecule.The same molecule is drawn in different configurations.
You can see why I drew the molecule this way.It is within perfect bonding distance to react with the carbonyl group when the OH group is 5 atoms.
There is a figure 5.The reaction of 4-hydroxybutyric acid is promoted by the hydroxyl group.The 4-hydroxybutyric acid is formed by reacting with itself.This reacts with water to complete the reaction.This is an example of people coming together.There are two
A lot.Here's why.This time, it's anachiometric assistance with phosphorous instead of carbon.
There is a figure 6.The blue arrow shows that the hydroxyl group 5 atoms from phosphorous puts it at the right bonding distance.The break of the red hatch line that holds the RNA together is promoted by this.The RNA has been destroyed.There is a hydrogen atom in the same location of the hydroxyl group.This is not promoted by hydrogen.This is why the vaccines must be kept cold.
The difference between the two is one oxygen atom.The vaccine is not stable.Isn't chemistry grand?
This is a partial explanation of the reaction.You would go into a coma if I added more details.
The Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science comes from the world of drug discovery, where he did research for more than 20 years.He holds a degree in chemistry.