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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...

Chirality

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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.
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Prochirality

Prochirality

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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: May 11, 2026

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

Published on: March 11, 2022

Chiral drugs: an overview.

Lien Ai Nguyen¹, Hua He, Chuong Pham-Huy

¹Department of Pharmacy, Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University Medical Center, 725 Welch Road, Palo Alto, USA;

International Journal of Biomedical Science : IJBS

|May 16, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Chiral drugs, often sold as racemic mixtures, can have different biological effects. Separating these enantiomers is crucial for safer and more effective pharmaceutical treatments and clinical applications.

Keywords:

analysis chiral drugs chiral separation chiral terms enantioselective antibodies metabolism pharmacokinetics pharmacology toxicology

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Area of Science:

Medicinal Chemistry
Pharmaceutical Sciences
Analytical Chemistry

Background:

Over half of current drugs are chiral compounds.
Approximately 90% of chiral drugs are marketed as racemic mixtures (equal parts of two enantiomers).
Enantiomers of chiral drugs can exhibit significantly different pharmacological, toxicological, and pharmacokinetic properties.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the nomenclature, pharmacology, toxicology, pharmacokinetics, and metabolism of common chiral drugs.
To explain the mechanisms behind differing enantiomer properties.
To examine techniques for chiral separation and analysis in pharmaceutical and clinical settings.

Main Methods:

Literature review of chiral drug properties and separation techniques.
Analysis of pharmacological, toxicological, and pharmacokinetic data for various chiral drugs.
Examination of different chiral separation methodologies.

Main Results:

Chiral drugs exhibit distinct biological activities based on their enantiomeric form.
Understanding these differences is key to optimizing drug efficacy and safety.
Various analytical techniques are available for effective chiral separation.

Conclusions:

The separation and analysis of chiral drugs are essential in pharmaceutical development and clinical practice.
Eliminating unwanted enantiomers can lead to improved therapeutic outcomes and patient safety.
Continued research into chiral separation techniques is vital for advancing drug development.