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Updated: Mar 3, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks MOFs
Published on: January 17, 2020
Spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking in heterocatalytically coupled enantioselective replicators
Josep M Ribó1,2, Joaquim Crusats1,2, Zoubir El-Hachemi1,2
1Department of Organic Chemistry , University of Barcelona , E-08028 Barcelona , Catalonia , Spain .
Abstract:
Chiral hypercycle replicators (first-order autocatalysis together with mutual cross-catalysis) formed from achiral or racemizing resources may lead to spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking (SMSB) without the need for additional heterochiral inhibition reactions, such as those of the Frank-like models, which are an obstacle for the emergence of evolutionary selection properties. The results indicate that the chemical models for the emergence of primordial autocatalytic self-reproducing systems, of and by themselves, can also explain naturally the emergence of biological homochirality.
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