A Knot Theoretic Approach to Molecular Chirality

Knot theoretical techniques are easily applicable to polymer chains that do form actual knots or links, such as some DNA fragments or various catenanes [59-72,204-213]. By appropriate modifications, the knot theoretical polynomials are also applicable to the analysis of chirality properties of general molecules that may not form knots by themselves, but the space around them can be represented by a knot. This approach has led to the concept of chirogenicity, and to a nonvisual, algorithmic, computer-based analysis of molecular chirality [62]. 

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