Homochirality and its significance for biosphere and the origin of life theory

Клабуновский, Е. И.

doi:10.1134/s1070428012070019

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 125 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A long-standing problem in biology is the origin of biomolecular homochirality, i.e., the observation of a natural preference for L-proteins and D-sugars in life forms [1][2][3][4]. The problem can to some extent be broken down into two sub-problems: why chiral configurations of a chiral molecule are stable (stabilization problem), and further how to explain the observed preference for a particular chiral configuration of a biological chiral molecule (discrimination problem).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential and the environment is modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. We carefully analyze different time-scales appearing in the resulting master equation at both weak-and strong-coupling limits. The corresponding results are accompanied by a set of coupled differential equations characterizing optical activity of the molecules. We show that, at the weak-coupling limit, chiral interactions prohibit the coherent racemization induced by decoherence effects and thus preserve the initial chiral state. At the strong-coupling limit, considering the memory effects of the environment, Markovian behavior is observed at long times.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Davankov [40] suggested chirality to be an indispensable feature of different levels of matter. While evolving this idea, we [39] considered a possibility of chiral effects of various physical phenomena on chemical reactions (electric field [41], electric field (propeller effect) [42], a combination of electric and magnetic fields [4,43], magnetic field [4,39,44], circularly polarized light [45], plasma torch of meteorite impact [46,47], solar irradiation [48,49], parity violation energy difference [29], and similar effects [39]). Gravity is among such physical phenomena as asymmetric factors [39].…”

Section: Gravity As a Chirality Inductormentioning

confidence: 99%

Сhiral and Racemic Fields Concept for Understanding of the Homochirality Origin, Asymmetric Catalysis, Chiral Superstructure Formation from Achiral Molecules, and B-Z DNA Conformational Transition

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The four most important and well-studied phenomena of mirror symmetry breaking of molecules were analyzed for the first time in terms of available common features and regularities. Mirror symmetry breaking of the primary origin of biological homochirality requires the involvement of an external chiral inductor (environmental chirality). All reviewed mirror symmetry breaking phenomena were considered from that standpoint. A concept of chiral and racemic fields was highly helpful in this analysis. A chiral gravitational field in combination with a static magnetic field (Earth’s environmental conditions) may be regarded as a hypothetical long-term chiral inductor. Experimental evidences suggest a possible effect of the environmental chiral inductor as a chiral trigger on the mirror symmetry breaking effect. Also, this effect explains a conformational transition of the right-handed double DNA helix to the left-handed double DNA helix (B-Z DNA transition) as possible DNA damage.

show abstract

“…The emergence of life has been inseparably linked with the emergence of biological homochirality ( L -amino acids, D -sugars) [ 5 – 8 ]. To date, the biotic theories, hypothesizing that homochirality emerged as inevitable consequence of the evolution of living matter [ 9 , 10 ], have been virtually abandoned (for being not amenable to testing in any scientific sense).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Mechanisms of Prebiotic Chirality Amplification

Bryliakov

2020

Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This review article surveys the recent experimental findings that suggest alternative chemical models of directed chirality amplification at the early, prebiotic Earth. It is believed that the chirality amplification step followed the initial emergence of small enantiomeric imbalance and preceded (as a necessary condition) the occurrence of homochiral biopolymers, assembled from enantiomerically pure building blocks. This work focuses on the chemical nature of possible mechanisms of primordial chirality enhancement, without going into detail of the preceding and subsequent phases of origination of biological homochirality and life on Earth. These mechanisms are discussed through the prism of integrity of biological natural selection and chemical kinetic selection.

show abstract

Homochirality and its significance for biosphere and the origin of life theory

Cited by 14 publications

References 125 publications

Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment

Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment

Сhiral and Racemic Fields Concept for Understanding of the Homochirality Origin, Asymmetric Catalysis, Chiral Superstructure Formation from Achiral Molecules, and B-Z DNA Conformational Transition

Chemical Mechanisms of Prebiotic Chirality Amplification

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About