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Updated: May 21, 2025

A Micropatterning Assay for Measuring Cell Chirality
Published on: March 11, 2022
Origin of homochirality in terrestrial biology
1Department of Biological Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, 6-3-1 Niijuku, Katsushika-ku, Tokyo 125-8585, Japan.
Abstract:
Recent analysis of samples from asteroids Ryugu and Bennu did not reveal any significant amino acid enantiomeric excesses, and these facts appear to contradict the most prevailing view that a slight enantiomeric excess of L-amino acids present on the primitive Earth is the origin of homochirality. From the perspective of continuity in biological evolution, it would again be considered a strong possibility that primordial tRNA aminoacylation could have led to preferential homochiral (L-) protein biosynthesis on the early Earth (Tamura- Schimmel model), and that RNA played a major role in the generation of amino acid homochirality. The results of recent molecular dynamics simulations have also clarified the mechanism of its chiral selectivity.
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