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Prebiotic sources of biomolecular handedness
Author(s) -
Mason Stephen F.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
chirality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.43
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1520-636X
pISSN - 0899-0042
DOI - 10.1002/chir.530030403
Subject(s) - homochirality , chemistry , enantiomer , biomolecule , electroweak interaction , stereoselectivity , computational chemistry , abiogenesis , chirality (physics) , amino acid , enantiomeric excess , stereochemistry , astrobiology , organic chemistry , physics , enantioselective synthesis , particle physics , quark , chiral symmetry , biochemistry , nambu–jona lasinio model , catalysis
Fischer demonstrated (1890–1919) that functional biomolecules are composed specifically of the D‐sugars and the L‐amino acids, and that in the laboratory synthetic reactions of such molecules propagate with chiral stereoselectivity. Given a primordial enantiomer, biomolecular homochirality followed without the intervention of the chiral natural force conjectured by Pasteur (1860), except prebiotically. Polarized solar radiation and other classical chiral forces were proposed as agencies generating a prebiotic enantiomeric excess, but the forces then known were found to be evenhanded on a time and space average, exemplifying parity conservation (1927). The weak nuclear force, shown to violate parity (1956), was unified with electromagnetism in the electroweak force (1970). Ab initio estimations including the chiral electroweak force indicate that the L‐amino acids and the D‐sugars are more stable than the corresponding enantiomers. The small energy difference between these enantiomer pairs, with Darwinian reaction kinetics in a flow reactor, account for the choice of biomolecular handedness made when life began.