Life’s handedness could have arisen spontaneously on Earth
New insight into the origins of homochirality point to adaptation to energy sources as driver
The way in which chemical systems adapt to an energy source can lead to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking, according to new findings from researchers in South Korea. The discovery could help explain the origins of biological homochirality – the phenomenon where many biomolecules exist solely as one enantiomer in nature.
Compounds like amino acids and sugars are essential for life, forming the building blocks of peptides, enzymes and nucleic acids. But in nature amino acids are almost always produced in their left-handed chiral form, while sugars are found in the right-handed one. This chirality is imparted into many other biomolecules, but its origins on the early Earth remain an enigma.