Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

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...

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...

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...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Progressive matrix stiffening of tyramine-modified silk fibroin hydrogels governs stage-specific pulmonary fibroblast activation.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026

Same author

Modeling ventricular tachycardia in genetic long QT syndrome using engineered cardiac tissues.

Bioactive materials·2026

Same author

Human iPSC-derived macrophages for studying intrinsic and extrinsic factors in cystic fibrosis.

EXO : beyond the cell·2026

Same author

A Simple, Robust Method for Cellular Electrical Interfacing Using Molecular Patterning.

ACS applied materials & interfaces·2026

Same author

Avenues for optimization of cardiac therapeutics by minimally invasive delivery.

Acta biomaterialia·2026

Same author

A custom preservation solution extends the ex vivo availability of living heart valves for transplantation.

JTCVS open·2025

Same journal

Modelling the behaviour of physiological processes: On the lack of a scientific basis in medical science.

Communicative & integrative biology·2026

Same journal

Can bacteria control the human brain?

Communicative & integrative biology·2026

Same journal

Quantum mechanics in drug design: Progress, challenges, and future frontiers.

Communicative & integrative biology·2025

Same journal

An experimental approach to study foraging memory in ectomycorrhizal mycelium.

Communicative & integrative biology·2025

Same journal

Consciousness and spintronic coherence in microtubules.

Communicative & integrative biology·2025

Same journal

Identification of brain-like complex information architectures in embryonic tissue of <i>Xenopus laevis</i> organoids.

Communicative & integrative biology·2025

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 23, 2026

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

Published on: March 11, 2022

Micropatterning chiral morphogenesis.

Leo Q Wan¹, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic

¹Department of Biomedical Engineering; Columbia University; New York, NY USA.

Communicative & Integrative Biology

|March 27, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Mammalian cells show left or right migration bias based on cell type and actin cytoskeleton function. This finding aids research into developmental laterality and birth defects.

More Related Videos

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives

Published on: February 7, 2017

Patterning of Microorganisms and Microparticles through Sequential Capillarity-assisted Assembly

Patterning of Microorganisms and Microparticles through Sequential Capillarity-assisted Assembly

Published on: November 4, 2021

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 23, 2026

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

Published on: March 11, 2022

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives

Published on: February 7, 2017

Patterning of Microorganisms and Microparticles through Sequential Capillarity-assisted Assembly

Patterning of Microorganisms and Microparticles through Sequential Capillarity-assisted Assembly

Published on: November 4, 2021

Area of Science:

Developmental Biology
Cell Migration
Biophysics

Background:

Left-right asymmetry is crucial for normal development.
Understanding the initiation of asymmetry is complex.
Previous methods lacked quantitative insights into cellular bias.

Purpose of the Study:

To quantitatively study the initiation of left-right asymmetry in mammalian cells.
To investigate the influence of cell phenotype and actin cytoskeleton on migratory bias.
To explore the relevance of a novel micropatterning technique for developmental studies.

Main Methods:

Utilized a new technique involving cells cultured on micropatterns with defined boundaries.
Quantitatively analyzed cell migratory behavior.
Correlated migratory bias with cell phenotype (cancer vs. normal cells) and actin cytoskeleton functionality.

Main Results:

Mammalian cells exhibit a discernible left or right migratory bias.
This bias is dependent on the cell's phenotype, with differences observed between cancer and normal cells.
Actin cytoskeleton functionality is a key determinant of the observed migratory directionality.

Conclusions:

The developed micropatterning technique provides a simple yet powerful tool for studying asymmetry.
Cellular phenotype and actin dynamics play critical roles in establishing left-right migratory patterns.
This approach has significant implications for understanding developmental laterality and associated birth defects.