NDLI: Photochemical Concepts on the Origin of Biomolecular Asymmetry

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Meierhenrich, Uwe J. Thiemann, Wolfram H. P.
Copyright Year	2004
Abstract	Biopolymers like DNA and proteins are strongly selective towards the chirality of their monomer units. The use of homochiral monomers is regarded as essential for the construction and function of biopolymers; the emergence of the molecular asymmetry is therefore considered as a fundamental step in Chemical Evolution. This work focuses on physicochemical mechanisms for the origin of biomolecular asymmetry. Very recently two groups, one from Allamandola at NASA Ames and the other from our Inter-European team, demonstrated simultaneously the spontaneous photoformation of a variety of chiral amino acid structures under simulated interstellar conditions. Since both groups used unpolarized light for the photoreaction the obtained amino acids turned out racemic as expected. The obtained experimental data support the assumption that tiny ice grains can furthermore play host to important asymmetric reactions when irradiated by interstellar circularly polarized ultraviolet light. It is possible that such ice grains could have become incorporated into the early cloud that formed our Solar System and ended up on Earth, assisting life to start. Several lines of evidence suggest that some of the building blocks of life were delivered to the primitive Earth via (micro-) meteoroids and/or comets. These results suggest that asymmetric interstellar photochemistry may have played a significant part in supplying Earth with some of the enantioenriched organic materials needed to trigger life. The search for the origin of biomolecular homochirality leads to a strong interest in the fields of asymmetric photochemistry with special emphasis on absolute asymmetric synthesis. We outline here the theoretical background on asymmetric interstellar ice photochemistry, summarize recent concepts and advances in the field, and discuss briefly its implications. The obtained data are crucial for the design of the enantioselective COSAC GC-MS experiment onboard the ROSETTA spacecraft to a comet to be launched in the very near future.
Starting Page	111
Ending Page	121
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01696149
Journal	Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
Volume Number	34
Issue Number	1-2
e-ISSN	15730875
Language	English
Publisher	Kluwer Academic Publishers
Publisher Date	2004-01-01
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Organic Chemistry Geochemistry Biochemistry
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Space and Planetary Science

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