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Chirality in Nature

Chirality in Nature

Chirality is the most intriguing yet essential facet of nature, governing life’s biochemical processes and precision. It can be observed from a snail shell pattern in a macroscopic world to an amino acid, the minutest building block of life. Most of the snails around the world have right-coiled shells because of the intrinsic chirality in their genes. All the amino acids present in the human body exist in an enantiomerically pure state, except for glycine - the sole achiral amino acid. The...

Prochirality

Prochirality

The concept of prochirality leads to the nomenclature of the individual faces of a molecule and plays a crucial role in the enantioselective reaction. It is a concept where two or more achiral molecules react to produce chiral products. A typical process is the reaction of an achiral ketone to generate a chiral alcohol. Here, the achiral reactant reacts with an achiral reducing agent, sodium borohydride, to generate an equimolar mixture of the chiral enantiomers of the product. For example, an...

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules that possess multiple chiral centers can afford a large number of stereoisomers. For instance, while some molecules like 2-butanol have one chiral center, defined as a tetrahedral carbon atom with four different substituents attached, several molecules like butane-2,3-diol have multiple chiral centers. A simple formula to predict the number of stereoisomers possible for a molecule with n chiral centers is 2n. However, there can be a lower number where some of the stereoisomers are...

Chirality

Chirality

Chirality is a term that describes the lack of mirror symmetry in an object. In other words, chiral objects cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, our feet are chiral, as the mirror image of the left foot, the right foot, cannot be superposed on the left foot.
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...

Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity

Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity

It is essential to understand the difference between chiral and achiral interactions and the implications thereof in optical activity and their applications. Just as our feet, which are chiral, interact uniquely with chiral objects, such as a pair of shoes, but identically with achiral socks, enantiomers of a molecule exhibit different properties only when they interact with other chiral media. An example of a significant implication from this facet is the phenomenon known as optical activity,...

Stereoisomers

Stereoisomers

On the basis of mirror symmetry, stereoisomers of an organic molecule can be further classified into diastereomers and enantiomers. Diastereomers are stereoisomers that are not mirror images of each other. Substituted alkenes, such as the cis and trans isomers of 2-butene, are diastereomers, as these molecules exhibit different spatial orientations of their constituent atoms, are not mirror images of each other, and do not interconvert. Here, the interconversion is suppressed due to restricted...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 3, 2026

CD Spectroscopy to Study DNA-Protein Interactions

CD Spectroscopy to Study DNA-Protein Interactions

Published on: February 10, 2022

Stereoselective interaction between DNA and chiral surfaces.

Kangjian Tang¹, Hui Gan, Yong Li

¹Physikalisches Institut, Muenster University, D-48149 Muenster, Germany.

Journal of the American Chemical Society

|August 6, 2008

Summary

Single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) shows distinct adsorption on chiral surfaces due to stereoselective hydrogen bonds. This finding offers insights into biological chiral preferences and DNA

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CD Spectroscopy to Study DNA-Protein Interactions

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Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Published on: March 5, 2019

Area of Science:

Biochemistry
Surface Science
Chirality Studies

Background:

Chiral surfaces influence molecular interactions.
Stereoselectivity is crucial in biological systems.
DNA adsorption properties are key for biochemical applications.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the adsorption behavior of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) on enantiomer-modified surfaces.
To elucidate the role of stereoselective hydrogen bonding in DNA-surface interactions.
To explore the implications for understanding biological chirality and developing DNA-based devices.

Main Methods:

Surface characterization of enantiomer-modified substrates.
ssDNA adsorption experiments.
Analysis of hydrogen bonding interactions using spectroscopic or computational methods (details not provided in abstract).

Main Results:

ssDNA exhibits significantly different adsorption behaviors on different enantiomers of modified surfaces.
Stereoselective hydrogen bonding interactions between ssDNA and chiral surfaces were identified as the primary cause.
The observed effects are dependent on the specific chiral surface and ssDNA.

Conclusions:

Stereoselective H-bond interactions govern ssDNA adsorption on chiral surfaces.
This phenomenon provides a model for understanding natural chiral preferences in cell-substrate interactions.
The findings offer new perspectives for DNA property studies and the design of novel biochemical devices.