Origin of homochirality in biological systems

The origin of biological homochirality.

The single handedness of biological molecules has fascinated scientists and laymen alike since Pasteur's first painstaking separation of the enantiomorphic crystals of a tartrate salt over 150 years ago. More recently, a number of theoretical and experimental investigations have helped to delineate models for how one enantiomer might have come to dominate over the other from what presumably was...

Origin of Homochirality in Biosystems

Experimental data for a series of central and simple molecules in biosystems show that some amino acids and a simple sugar molecule have a chiral discrimination in favor of homochirality. Models for segregation of racemic mixtures of chiral amphiphiles and lipophiles in aqueous solutions show that the amphiphiles with an active isomerization kinetics can perform a spontaneous break of symmetry ...

3 Chirality and the Origin of Homochirality

L-amino Acid Enrichments in Carbonaceous Meteorites: Implications for the Origin of Biological Homochirality

Introduction: Meteorites provide a record of the chemical processes that occurred in the early solar system before life began on Earth. The delivery of organic compounds by carbonaceous meteorites to the early Earth and other planetary bodies could have been an important source of prebiotic compounds required for the emergence of life as we know it [1]. The finding of slight to significant enan...

Origin of Homochirality of Amino Acids in the Biosphere

Discussions are made concerning realistic mechanisms for the origin of L-amino acids in the biosphere. As the most plausible mechanism, it is proposed that a mixture of racemic amino acids in the prebiotic sea caused spontaneous and effective optical resolution through self crystallization, even if asymmetric synthesis of a single amino acid has never occurred without the aid of an optically ac...