Copper carbohydrate interaction

M. Jezowska-Bojczuk, H. Kozlowski, T. Trnka, and M. Cerny, Interaction of 1,6-anhydro derivatives of amino sugars with copper(II) ions, Carbohydr. Res., 253 (1994) 19-28. 

Thus the primitive ocean must have steadily increased in organic content. These substances would have interacted with one another to form a whole range of new substances. The surface of the rocks and clays of the beds of the shallow seas, containing iron, magnesium, and copper, would have provided catalytic surfaces on which the organic substances would have begun to collect and to polymerize. As a result, short-chain peptides and nucleic acids, and possibly carbohydrates as well, would also have begun to accumulate, both bound on to mineral surfaces and free in solution in the seas. 

---