Chirality of the Amino Acids
A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Chemistry: Symmetry/Asymmetry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2020) | Viewed by 194
Special Issue Editors
Interests: astrophysics; astrobiology
Interests: nuclear astrophysics; astrobiology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
One of nature’s enduring mysteries is how the Earth’s amino acids became dominated by their left-handed chirality. The explanations that have been proposed for this have included (i) creation of the nonchiral molecules on early Earth via a lightning-like event followed by some mechanism that could then skew slightly toward a preferred chirality, or (ii) creation of the molecules in outer space followed by one of several events that could have selected one chirality, followed by delivery to Earth via meteorites. In either case, autocatalysis is required to amplify the tiny enantiomeric excesses produced to the near homochirality that now exists.
Earthly creation of a preferred chirality has involved studies of weak interaction effects in the synthesis of amino acids, effects of electromagnetic radiation, or selection effects in solid materials. Chirality selection in space might involve extreme cosmic events such as supernovae, double scattering of light from extremely hot stars or selection through interactions with energetic electrons. The advantage of the latter scenarios is that amino acids in meteorites have been found to have a slight preference for left-handedness, so some mechanism has produced the observed result.
This rapidly-growing field exists at the confluence of laboratory astrophysics, physical chemistry, observational astronomy, experimental biology, theoretical physics and chemistry, and computational physics. It is interdisciplinary in nature, with practitioners from a variety of disciplines.
Recent research and review papers are encouraged in theoretical, observational, and experimental work.
Prof. Dr. Richard Boyd
Prof. Dr. Michael A. Famiano
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- amino acids
- amino acid chirality
- origin of life
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