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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.

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...

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,...

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...

Fischer Projections

Fischer Projections

Learning to draw Fischer projections of molecules and understanding their relevance plays a crucial role in the visual depiction of organic molecules. A Fischer projection is a two-dimensional projection on a planar surface to simplify the three-dimensional wedge–dash representation of molecules. This is especially helpful in the case of molecules with multiple chiral centers that can be difficult to draw. Here, all the bonds of interest are represented as horizontal or vertical lines.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 23, 2025

Site Directed Spin Labeling and EPR Spectroscopic Studies of Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels

Site Directed Spin Labeling and EPR Spectroscopic Studies of Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels

Published on: July 4, 2016

Spinterface chirality-induced spin selectivity effect in bio-molecules.

Yonatan Dubi^1,2

¹Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University of the Negev Be'er Sheva Israel 8410501 jdubi@bgu.ac.il.

Chemical Science

|November 2, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect in molecular electronics is explained by a new theory. This model quantitatively analyzes experimental data, offering insights into the CISS effect

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A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

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Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Aug 23, 2025

Site Directed Spin Labeling and EPR Spectroscopic Studies of Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels

Site Directed Spin Labeling and EPR Spectroscopic Studies of Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels

Published on: July 4, 2016

Interfacial Molecular-level Structures of Polymers and Biomacromolecules Revealed via Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy

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Published on: August 13, 2019

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality

Published on: March 11, 2022

Area of Science:

Molecular electronics
Spintronics
Quantum transport

Background:

The chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect describes how electron spin affects current in chiral molecules.
Despite its potential for spin- and chirality-related applications, the physical origin of CISS remains unclear.
Existing theories fail to quantitatively explain experimental observations.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose a novel theoretical framework for the CISS effect in bio-molecular junctions.
To provide the first quantitative analysis of experimental data for the CISS effect.
To offer insights into the fundamental origin of spin selectivity in chiral systems.

Main Methods:

Developed a theory integrating spin-orbit coupling in electrodes, molecular chirality, and spin-transfer torque.
Applied the theory to quantitatively analyze existing experimental data.
Focused on bio-molecular junctions to understand the electrode-molecule interface effects.

Main Results:

The proposed theory successfully provides the first quantitative description of experimental data for the CISS effect.
The model elucidates the interplay between electrode spin-orbit coupling, molecular chirality, and interfacial spin-transfer torque.
New insights into the physical origin of spin selectivity in chiral molecular systems are revealed.

Conclusions:

The new theory offers a quantitative explanation for the CISS effect in bio-molecular junctions.
This work paves the way for analyzing past experiments and designing future ones.
It contributes to resolving a significant challenge in molecular electronics and nanoscale transport.