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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.
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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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Engineering tertiary chirality in helical biopolymers.

Jordan Janowski1, Van A B Pham2, Simon Vecchioni1

  • 1Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, NY 10003.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|April 29, 2024
PubMed
Summary

Researchers explored tertiary chirality in DNA tensegrity triangles, identifying key points for chirality inversion using X-ray diffraction. This work advances the design of chiral nanomaterials and optically active molecules.

Keywords:
DNA nanotechnologychiralitycrystallographymathematical modelself-assembly

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Area of Science:

  • Supramolecular chemistry
  • Biophysical chemistry
  • Nanoscience

Background:

  • Tertiary chirality governs supramolecular assembly handedness, influenced by building block structure and topological forces.
  • Helical biopolymers, notably DNA, exhibit intrinsic chirality affecting material properties.
  • Understanding tertiary chirality is crucial for designing advanced chiral materials.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate tertiary chirality inversion in DNA tensegrity triangles.
  • To identify critical tipping points influencing handedness at the molecular level.
  • To develop a predictive model for supramolecular chirality.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing X-ray diffraction to analyze DNA tensegrity triangle crystals.
  • Engineering crystals with controlled rotational steps between DNA junctions (3–28 base pairs).
  • Developing a mathematical model to explain observed molecular configurations.

Main Results:

  • Successfully located tipping points for tertiary chirality inversion in the DNA tensegrity triangle model.
  • The engineered crystals revealed predictable changes in handedness with incremental base pair adjustments.
  • The developed mathematical model accurately predicted and explained chirality inversion.

Conclusions:

  • The DNA tensegrity triangle serves as a robust model for studying tertiary chirality.
  • The findings provide a framework for designing novel chiral nanomaterials and optically active molecules.
  • This research has implications for physical, biological, and chemical nanoscience applications.