Shock experiments with an l-alanine solution and implications for the cometary delivery of amino acids and dimers with enantiomeric excesses to the early Earth

Mimura, Koichi; Okada, Riku

doi:10.1016/j.gca.2022.01.030

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…(1) Amino Acids. Amino acids either formed in situ in prebiotic environments [21][22][23] or delivered via meteorites [24][25][26]. (2) Divalent Cations.…”

Section: Figure 1 (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Role of the CuCl Active Complex in the Stereoselectivity of the Salt-Induced Peptide Formation Reaction: Insights from Density Functional Theory Calculations

Fox,

Boettger,

Berger

et al. 2023

Life

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The salt-induced peptide formation (SIPF) reaction is a prebiotically plausible mechanism for the spontaneous polymerization of amino acids into peptides on early Earth. Experimental investigations of the SIPF reaction have found that in certain conditions, the l enantiomer is more reactive than the d enantiomer, indicating its potential role in the rise of biohomochirality. Previous work hypothesized that the distortion of the CuCl active complex toward a tetrahedral-like structure increases the central chirality on the Cu ion, which amplifies the inherent parity-violating energy differences between l- and d-amino acid enantiomers, leading to stereoselectivity. Computational evaluations of this theory have been limited to the protonated–neutral l + l forms of the CuCl active complex. Here, density functional theory methods were used to compare the energies and geometries of the homochiral (l + l and d + d) and heterochiral (l + d) CuCl–amino acid complexes for both the positive–neutral and neutral–neutral forms for alanine, valine, and proline. Significant energy differences were not observed between different chiral active complexes (i.e., d + d, l + l vs. l + d), and the distortions of active complexes between stereoselective systems and non-selective systems were not consistent, indicating that the geometry of the active complex is not the primary driver of the observed stereoselectivity of the SIPF reaction.

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“…(1) Amino Acids. Amino acids either formed in situ in prebiotic environments [21][22][23] or delivered via meteorites [24][25][26]. (2) Divalent Cations.…”

Section: Figure 1 (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The requirements to facilitate the SIPF reaction are feasible in an early Earth environment: Amino Acids. Amino acids either formed in situ in prebiotic environments [ 21 , 22 , 23 ] or delivered via meteorites [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Divalent Cations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%