Origins of biomolecular handedness
Abstract
Classical mechanisms proposed for the transition from racemic geochemistry to homochiral biochemistry in terrestrial evolution generally ascribe to chance the particular handed choice of the L-amino acids and the D-sugars by self-replicating systems. The parity-violating weak neutral current interaction gives rise to an energy difference between a chiral molecule and its mirror-image isomer, resulting in a small stabilization of the L-amino acids and the L-peptides in the α-helix and the β-sheet conformation relative to the corresponding enantiomer. The energy difference suffices to break the chiral symmetry of autocatalytic racemic reaction sequences in an open non-equilibrium system.
- Publication:
-
Nature
- Pub Date:
- September 1984
- DOI:
- 10.1038/311019a0
- Bibcode:
- 1984Natur.311...19M