Molecular handedness

Handedness is also important in organic and biological chemistry, where it arises primarily as a consequence of the tetrahedral stereochemistry of 5p3-hybridized carbon atoms. Many drugs and almost all the molecules in our bodies, for instance, are handed. Furthermore, it is molecular handedness that makes possible the specific interactions between enzymes and their substrates that are so crucial to enzyme function. We ll look at handedness and its consequences in this chapter. 

Ever since Pasteur s work with enantiomers of sodium ammonium tartrate, the interaction of polarized light has provided a powerful, physical probe of molecular chirality [18]. What we may consider to be conventional circular dichroism (CD) arises from the different absorption of left- and right-circularly polarized light by target molecules of a specific handedness [19, 20]. However, absorption measurements made with randomly oriented samples provide a dichroism difference signal that is typically rather small. The chirally induced asymmetry or dichroism can be expressed as a Kuhn g-factor [21] defined as ... 

The well-resolved C=0 li peak in the fenchone XPS provides an excellent opportunity to examine PECO from a single, well-characterized initial orbital. As has been previously mentioned, it might be thought that such a localized, spherically symmetric initial orbital would not be sensitive to the molecular enantiomer s handedness, but as can be seen in Fig. 15 (a) the dichroism in the electron yield recorded at the magic angle is sufficiently large to be easily visible by eye as a difference in the intensity of the Icp and rep spectra. 

Evidence on the mechanism of reactions can also come from examining the exact molecular geometry of the overall process, its stereochemistry. For example, if a reactant with defined handedness (chirality) is converted to a product that is an equal mixture of the left- and right-handed forms, the loss of handedness indicates that a particular geometry must have been involved along the path. If a right-handed molecule is converted only to a left-handed product, we say that an inversion of configuration has occurred, and this also tells us a lot about how the reaction occurred. 

So far we have considered the formation of tubules in systems of fixed molecular chirality. It is also possible that tubules might form out of membranes that undergo a chiral symmetry-breaking transition, in which they spontaneously break reflection symmetry and select a handedness, even if they are composed of achiral molecules. This symmetry breaking has been seen in bent-core liquid crystals which spontaneously form a liquid conglomerate composed of macroscopic chiral domains of either handedness.194 This topic is extensively discussed in Walba s chapter elsewhere in this volume. Some indications of this effect have also been seen in experiments on self-assembled aggregates.195,196... 

There are two reasons to think this situation might occur. The first reason is experimental. As discussed in Sections 2-5, in most experiments on chiral materials, tubules and helical ribbons are observed with only one sense of handedness. However, there are a few exceptions in experiments on diacetylenic phospholipids,144 diacetylenic phosphonate lipids,145 146 and bile.162 In these exceptional cases, some helices are observed with the opposite sense of handedness from the majority. In the work on diacetylenic phospholipids, the minority handedness was observed only during the kinetic process of tubule formation at high lipid concentration,144 which is a condition that should promote metastable states. Hence, these experiments may indeed show a case of biased chiral symmetry-breaking in which the molecular chirality favors a state of one handedness and disfavors a mirror image state. 

Some Correlations Between Molecular and Cholesteric Handedness... 

Surprisingly, very little work concerning the relationships between molecular and the cholesteric handedness has been published, even if this theme is not only intellectually stimulating but also considerably interesting for its applications. 

In this report, we shall attempt to review critically works correlating the molecular chirality to the cholesteric handedness. 

Before attempting to develop any theory correlating molecular to cholesteric handedness, one must be completely sure of the experimental data. A cholesteric phase is fully described by its handedness and pitch, and often also knowledge of the pitch variations with temperature is fundamental. In particular, the determination of the handedness is quite a delicate matter. Before discussing the methods currently used to determine handedness and pitch, the principal textures of the cholesteric phase must be briefly reviewed The planar or Grandjean textures are obtained in thin cells by rubbing the cell walls (with... 

From a cholesteric induction experiment, one can obtain chiral information on the induced cholesteric (namely, pitch and handedness) and therefore the helical twisting power of the dopant in that solvent (at a certain temperature). If a model or molecular theory relating molecular chirality to mesophase chirality is available, one can infer stereochemical information about the dopant (absolute configuration, preferred conformation). 

A satisfactory understanding of the relation existing between molecular and phase handedness would require the knowledge of how the chiral information is transferred from the dopant to the bulk of the solvent. 

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