Biological Homochirality on the Earth, or in the Universe? A Selective Review

被引:26
|
作者
Davankov, Vadim A. [1 ]
机构
[1] Russian Acad Sci, Inst Organoelement Cpds, Moscow 119991, Russia
来源
SYMMETRY-BASEL | 2018年 / 10卷 / 12期
关键词
origin of life; biological homochirality; deracemization; super-high-velocity impact; plasma reactor; absolute asymmetric synthesis; amino acids; PHOTOCHIROGENESIS PHOTOCHEMICAL MODELS; HYPERVELOCITY METEORITE IMPACT; AMINO-ACIDS; CIRCULAR-POLARIZATION; PARITY CONSERVATION; SYMMETRY-BREAKING; CHIRAL-SYMMETRY; ORGANIC-MATTER; L-ALANINE; ORIGIN;
D O I
10.3390/sym10120749
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
The discovery of meteoritic alpha-amino acids with significant enantiomeric excesses of the L-form has suggested that some cosmic factors could serve as the initial source for chiral imbalance of organic compounds delivered to the early Earth. The paper reviews major hypothesis considering the influence of chiral irradiation and chiral combinations of physical fields on the possible ways asymmetric synthesis and transformations of organics could take place within the solar system. They could result in a small enantiomeric imbalance of some groups of compounds. More attention is paid to the hypothesis on parity violation of weak interaction that was supposed to cause homochirality of all primary particles and a more significant homochirality of compounds directly synthesized from the latter in a plasma reactor. The first experiment with material synthesized in a plasma torch resulting from a super-high-velocity impact showed formation of alanine with the excess of L-form between 7 and 25%. The supposed conclusion is that L-amino acids could serve as a starting homochiral biomolecular pool for life to emerge all over the Universe.
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页数:13
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