Biomolecules chirality

Shibata T, Morioka H, Hayase T, Choji K, Soai K (1996) Highly enantioselective catalytic asymmetric auto-multiplication of chiral pyrimidyl alcohol. J Am Chem Soc 118 471-472 Soai K, Kawasaki T (2006) Discovery of asymmetric autocatalysis with amplification of chirality and its implication in chiral homogeneity of biomolecules. Chirality 18 469-478 Szostak JW (2010) On the origins of primitive cells from nutrient intake to elongation encapsulated nucleotides. Angew Chem 49 3738-3750 Szostak JW et al (2001) Synthesizing life. Nature 409 387-390... 

Soai K, Kawasaki T Discovery of asymmetric autocatalysis with amplification of chirality and its implication in chiral homogeneity of biomolecules. Chirality 2006, 18(7) 469-478. 

Soai, K. Kawasaki, T. Discovery of Asymmetric Autocatalysis with Amplification of Chirality and Its Implications in Chiral Homogeneity of Biomolecules. Chirality 2006, 18, 469. 

Because the time scale of the Raman scattering event ( 3.3 x 10-14s for a vibration with wavenumber shift 1000 cm-1 excited in the visible) is much shorter than that of the fastest conformational fluctuations in biomolecules, the ROA spectrum is a superposition of snapshot spectra from all the distinct chiral conformers present in the sample. Together with the dependence of ROA on chirality, this leads to an enhanced sensitivity to the dynamic aspects of biomolecular structure. The two-group model provides a qualitative explanation since it predicts ROA intensities that depend on absolute chirality in the form of a sin x dependence... 

The second report from La Jolla attempts to cast some light on the question of the homochirality of biomolecules (see Sect. 9.4). Put simply, the question is why only one of the two possible chiral forms is always found in some important classes of biomolecules. 

Another attempt to explain the homochirality of biomolecules is based on autocatalysis. The great advantage of asymmetric catalysis is that the catalyst and the chiral product are identical and thus do not need to be separated (Buschmann et al., 2000). The racemic mixture must have been affected by a weak perturbation in order that autocatalysis, which acts as an amplifier of enantioselectivity, could have led to only one of the two enantiomeric forms. This perturbation could have been due to the slight energy difference of the enantiomers referred to above, or to statistical fluctuations. 

Another hypothesis on homochirality involves interaction of biomolecules with minerals, either at rock surfaces or at the sea bottom thus, adsorption processes of biomolecules at chiral mineral surfaces have been studied. Klabunovskii and Thiemann (2000) used a large selection of analytical data, provided by other authors, to study whether natural, optically active quartz could have played a role in the emergence of optical activity on the primeval Earth. Some researchers consider it possible that enantioselective adsorption by one of the quartz species (L or D) could have led to the homochirality of biomolecules. Asymmetric adsorption at enantiomor-phic quartz crystals has been detected L-quartz preferentially adsorbs L-alanine. Asymmetrical hydrogenation using d- or L-quartz as active catalysts is also possible. However, if the information in a large number of publications is averaged out, as Klabunovskii and Thiemann could show, there is no clear preference in nature for one of the two enantiomorphic quartz structures. It is possible that rhomobohedral... 

It should be possible to use the special properties of chiral structures for particular separation problems. According to Belinski and Tencer, one possible way in which nature solved the ribose problem could have involved an enantioselective and diastereoselective purification process acting on a mixture of biomolecules, which left ribose as the only molecule available for further reactions. The authors propose a theoretical mechanism in which a type of chromatographic process occurs at chiral mineral surfaces. This paper is likely to stimulate new experiments as well as the quest for as yet unknown surfaces which can separate racemic carbohydrate mixtures. The question arises, however, as to whether there were minerals present on the young Earth which are now unknown, as they no longer exist on the Earth of today (Belinski and Tencer, 2007). 

Laboratory data from two groups (see Sect. 3.2.4) indicate that chiral amino acid structures can be formed in simulations of the conditions present in interstellar space. The experimental results support the assumption that important asymmetrical reactions could have taken place on interstellar ice particles irradiated with circularly polarised UV light. The question as to whether such material was ever transported to the young Earth remains open. But the Rosetta mission may provide important answers on the problem of asymmetric syntheses of biomolecules under cosmic conditions (Meierhenrich and Thiemann, 2004). 

Both the N- (a-methylbenzy 1) stearamide and phospholipid systems as detailed above proved to be difficult systems with which to work. The inability of N- a-methylbenzy 1)stearamide to form stable monolayers or even to spread from the crystal on anything but very acidic subphases presents a significant technical challenge despite the presence of a chiral headgroup that is unobstructed by other molecular features. On the other hand, the phospholipid surfactants that spread to form stable films both from solution and from their bulk crystals on pure water subphases at ambient temperatures displayed no discernible enantiomeric discrimination in any film property. The chiral functionality on these biomolecules is apparently shielded from intermolecular interactions with other chiral centers to the extent... 

Ever since the beginning of life on primitive Earth, biopolymers and biomolecules have essentially comprised optically active constituents because of the natural selection of Z-amino acids and tZ-sugars. Although the origin of this biomolecular handedness is a long debated issue among biologists, chemists, physicists, and astronomers,1 5 it is accepted that our life is a consequence of the chemistry of homochiral biosubstances. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a classic example of a chiral biopolymer. Its chirality is essentially characterized... 

Chiral molecules have a nonsuperposable mirror image (see Fig. 11.1) and so possess intrinsic handedness in three-dimensional space. In a perfectly symmetric, chi-rally unbiased world, each handed version (enantiomer) must exist with an equal probability. The observed preference of one enantiomer over the other in biomolecules implies that this symmetry has been broken. The initial induction of a symmetry-breaking chiral excess is the sine qua non of eventual chiral dominance. Several mechanisms have been proposed to bring about chiral symmetry breaking. 

Noncovalent interactions play a key role in biodisciplines. A celebrated example is the secondary structure of proteins. The 20 natural amino acids are each characterized by different structures with more or less acidic or basic, hydrophilic or hydrophobic functionalities and thus capable of different intermolecular interactions. Due to the formation of hydrogen bonds between nearby C=0 and N-H groups, protein polypeptide backbones can be twisted into a-helixes, even in the gas phase in the absence of any solvent." A protein function is determined more directly by its three-dimensional structure and dynamics than by its sequence of amino acids. Three-dimensional structures are strongly influenced by weak non-covalent interactions between side functionalities, but the central importance of these weak interactions is by no means limited to structural effects. Life relies on biological specificity, which arises from the fact that individual biomolecules communicate through non-covalent interactions." " Molecular and chiral recognition rely on... 

The enantioselective incorporation of these amino acids into the serine octamers represents an example of chiral transmission to elementary biomolecules and a possible way of chirality amplification on primitive earth. 

L-Pipecolic acid, a key component of many antibiotic and anticancer biomolecules, serves as an important chiral pharmaceutical intermediate. We have developed an enzyme-coupled system consisting of zl -piperidine-2-carboxylate reductase (Pip2C) from Pseudomonas putida, glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) from Bacillus subtilis, and L-lysine a-oxidase from Trichoderma viride, affording L-pipecolic acid from L-lysine in high yield with an excellent enantioselectivity (Figure 10.2). ... 

ASYMMETRIC AUTOCATALYSIS WITH AMPLIFICATION OF CHIRALITY AND ORIGIN OF CHIRAL HOMOGENEITY OF BIOMOLECULES... 

The Fischer projection (center) is used to present the formulas for chiral centers in biomolecules. It is derived from their three-di-... 

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