相关论文: Origin of Chirality in the Molecules of Life
A key open question in the study of life is the origin of biomolecular homochirality: almost every life-form on Earth has exclusively levorotary amino acids and dextrorotary sugars. Will the same handedness be preferred if life is found…
Molecular chirality is critical to biochemical function, but it is unknown when chiral selectivity first became important in the evolutionary transition from geochemistry to biochemistry during the emergence of life. Here, we identify key…
(abridged) We review recent studies of chirality using circularly polarized light, along with the birth and evolution of life and planetary systems. Terrestrial life consists almost exclusively of one enantiomer, left-handed amino acids.…
Chirality or the property that distinguishes lefthandedness from righthandedness is an important aspect of the universe, starting from neutrinos, which are lefthanded. Fifteen years ago the author had proposed that life on the earth was…
Most biomolecules occur in mirror, or chiral, images of each other. However, life is homochiral: proteins contain almost exclusively levorotatory (L) amino acids, while only dextrorotatory (R) sugars appear in RNA and DNA. The mechanism…
Life is homochiral and homochirality is a fundamental feature of living systems on Earth. While the exact mechanism that led to homochirality is still not fully understood, any realistic scenario on the origins of life needs to address the…
Many of the building blocks of life such as amino acids and nucleotides are chiral, i.e., different from their mirror image. Contemporary life selects and synthesizes only one of two possible handednesses. In an abiotic environment,…
Chiral symmetry breaking occurs when a physical or chemical process, with no preference for the production of one or other enantiomer, spontaneously generates a large excess of one of the two enantiomers: (L), left-handed or (D), right…
Conceptualizing planetary habitability depends on understanding how living organisms originated and what features of environments are essential to foster abiogenesis. Estimates of the abundance of life's building blocks are confounded by…
The search for life elsewhere in the universe is a pivotal question in modern science. However, to address whether life is common in the universe we must first understand the likelihood of abiogenesis by studying the origin of life on…
The phenomenon of life is discussed within a framework of its origin as defined by four hypotheses. The 1. hypothesis says: Life, as we know, is (H-C-N-O) based and relies on the number of bulk (Na-Mg-P-S-Cl-K-Ca) and trace elements…
Biological macromolecules, proteins and nucleic acids are composed exclusively of chirally pure monomers. The chirality consensus appears vital for life and it has even been considered as a prerequisite of life. However the primary cause…
Most amino acids and sugars molecules occur in mirror, or chiral, images of each other, knowns as enantiomers. However, life on Earth is mostly homochiral: proteins contain almost exclusively L-amino acids, while only D-sugars appear in RNA…
The origin of bio-homochirality is a subject of much debate. The emergence of chirality and life on earth is a break of symmetry to be compared with the breaks of symmetry in the evolution of the universe. Based on a perspective of…
Life as we know it is homochiral, but the origins of biological homochirality on early Earth remain elusive. Shallow closed-basin lakes are a plausible prebiotic environment on early Earth, and most are expected to have significant…
The presence of chirality in the main molecules of life may well be not just a structural artifact, but of pure biological advantage. The possibility of the existence of a phenomenon of a special mode of interaction, labeled as "chiral…
The emergence of biomolecular homochirality is a critically important question about life phenomenon and the origins of life. In a previous paper (arXiv:1309.1229), I tentatively put forward a new hypothesis that the emergence of a single…
Chirality is a fundamental feature in all domains of nature, ranging from particle physics over electromagnetism to chemistry and biology. Chiral objects lack a mirror plane and inversion symmetry and therefore cannot be spatially aligned…
Geometrical chirality is a universal property encountered on very different length scales ranging from geometrical shapes of living organisms to protein and DNA molecules. Interaction of chiral matter with chiral light - that is,…
Homochirality is a signature of life on Earth yet its origins remain an unsolved puzzle. Achieving homochirality is essential for a high-yielding prebiotic network capable of producing functional polymers like ribonucleic acid (RNA) and…