Abstract
The significance of optically active molecules and of the related biopolymer chiral structures is underlined in present day terrestrial living systems. These are dealing with the chemistry of the tetravalent carbon atom, but chirality may be relevant to other kind, if any, of living matter. Chiral fields that were possibly acting during evolution may give a clue to the origin of optical activity arising from a given handedness, but the opposite handedness is most probably not biologically forbidden. In any case, enrichment in enantiomer requires amplification mechanisms. Different examples are shortly displayed, based on recent experimental results dealing with the ordered structures of biopolymers. As they are generally restricted to a single class of biomolecules, a tentative coherent approach to the problem of chirality in the course of evolution is developed in the form of an integrated model which takes into account as a whole the main homochiral molecular families (aminoacids, sugars, lipids …) and suggests the design of new simulation experiments of prebiotic meaning.
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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Spach, G., Brack, A. (1988). Chemical Production of Optically Pure Systems. In: Marx, G. (eds) Bioastronomy — The Next Steps. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 144. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2959-3_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2959-3_31
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