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Chirality amplification--the accumulation principle revisited.
1Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA.
Summary
Chirality amplification via the Accumulation Principle fails to create unique homochiral biopolymers or enantiomorphic crystals. This historical mechanism is analytically invalid for realistic polymerization and crystallization processes.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Chemical Crystallography
Background:
- The 1966 Yamagata model proposed a chirality amplification mechanism based on the Accumulation Principle.
- This principle involved parity violating energy differences in biopolymer formation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To historically survey and analytically examine Yamagata's 1966 chirality amplification mechanism.
- To assess the validity of the Accumulation Principle in forming homochiral polymers and enantiomorphic crystals.
Main Methods:
- Historical review of the Accumulation Principle.
- Analytical examination of the mechanism's application in polymerization.
- Scrutiny of the principle's extension to enantiomorphic crystal formation.
Main Results:
- The Accumulation Principle is analytically incapable of producing unique homochiral polymers in realistic polymerization.
- The extension of the Accumulation Principle to enantiomorphic crystallizations is misapplied and invalid.
Conclusions:
- Yamagata's 1966 chirality amplification mechanism, based on the Accumulation Principle, is not a valid model for generating homochiral biopolymers.
- The principle's application to crystal formation is also fundamentally flawed.