Title |
The Life Story of Hydrogen Peroxide III: Chirality and Physical Effects at the Dawn of Life
|
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Published in |
Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, September 2015
|
DOI | 10.1007/s11084-015-9465-y |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Rowena Ball, John Brindley |
Abstract |
It is a remarkable observed fact that all life on Earth is homochiral, its biology using exclusively the D-enantiomer of ribose, the sugar moiety of the ribonucleic acids, and the L-enantiomers of the chiral amino acids. Motivated by concurrent work that elaborates further the role of hydrogen peroxide in providing an oscillatory drive for the RNA world (Ball & Brindley 2015a, J. R. Soc. Interface 12, 20150366, and Ball & Brindley 2015b, this journal, in press), we reappraise the structure and physical properties of this small molecule within this context. Hydrogen peroxide is the smallest, simplest molecule to exist as a pair of non-superimposable mirror images, or enantiomers, a fact which leads us to develop the hypothesis that its enantiospecific interactions with ribonucleic acids led to enantioselective outcomes. We propose a mechanism by which these chiral interactions may have led to amplification of D-ribonucleic acids and extinction of L-ribonucleic acids. |
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Unknown | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
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Members of the public | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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Canada | 1 | 4% |
Unknown | 25 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
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Student > Ph. D. Student | 6 | 23% |
Student > Master | 3 | 12% |
Student > Bachelor | 2 | 8% |
Other | 2 | 8% |
Researcher | 2 | 8% |
Other | 6 | 23% |
Unknown | 5 | 19% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
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Chemistry | 10 | 38% |
Physics and Astronomy | 4 | 15% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 2 | 8% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 2 | 8% |
Earth and Planetary Sciences | 1 | 4% |
Other | 1 | 4% |
Unknown | 6 | 23% |