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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.

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,...

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...

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...

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 at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 26, 2025

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

Published on: March 11, 2022

Active chiral molecules in activity gradients.

Pietro Luigi Muzzeddu¹, Hidde Derk Vuijk², Hartmut Löwen³

¹SISSA-International School for Advanced Studies, I-34136 Trieste, Italy.

The Journal of Chemical Physics

|October 8, 2022

Summary

Active chiral dimers switch from antichemotactic to chemotactic movement in activity gradients due to cooperative particle exploration. This emergent chemotaxis differs from charged Brownian particle dynamics under magnetic fields.

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Published on: September 14, 2016

Area of Science:

Soft matter physics
Active matter systems
Colloidal science

Background:

Behavior of active colloidal molecules is well-understood for constant activity.
The effects of activity gradients on these systems are less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

Explore the behavior of active chiral dimers in activity gradients.
Investigate the transition from antichemotactic to chemotactic behavior.
Compare active chiral dimers with charged Brownian particles.

Main Methods:

Analytical modeling of active chiral dimers.
Comparative analysis with charged Brownian particles under a magnetic field.

Main Results:

Active chiral dimers switch from antichemotactic to chemotactic behavior with increasing torque.
Emergent chemotaxis arises from cooperative exploration of activity gradients.
Active chiral dimers exhibit distinct dynamics and chemotaxis compared to charged Brownian particles.

Conclusions:

Cooperative exploration drives emergent chemotaxis in active chiral dimers.
The dynamics of active chiral dimers and charged Brownian particles are not equivalent.
Oppositely charged active dimers remain antichemotactic in magnetic fields.