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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.

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...

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...

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...

Applications Of NMR In Biology

Applications Of NMR In Biology

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a very valuable analytical technique for researchers. It has been used for more than 50 years as an analytical tool. F. Bloch and E. Purcell formulated NMR in 1946 and won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. Biological macromolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and organic molecules including pharmaceutical compounds, can be studied using this versatile tool that exploits the magnetic properties of certain nuclei.

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...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 13, 2025

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Published on: March 5, 2019

Nucleic acid-based chiral nanostructures and their biomedical applications.

Shuhui Yu^1,2, Yiming Xie^3,2, Yunfei Jiao^4,2

¹Henan Institutes of Advanced Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China. dingbq@nanoctr.cn.

Nanoscale Horizons

|June 12, 2025

Summary

Chiral nucleic acids, like DNA and RNA, form unique nanostructures with diverse biomedical applications. This review explores their fundamental properties and recent advancements in nanotechnology.

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Last Updated: Jun 13, 2025

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Area of Science:

Biochemistry
Nanotechnology
Structural Biology

Background:

Chirality is a fundamental property of nature, observed in biomolecules like nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).
Different chiral forms of DNA (A-form, B-form, Z-form) and synthetic L-nucleic acids exhibit distinct properties and functions.
Nucleic acids serve as versatile building blocks for creating complex chiral nanostructures.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the fundamentals of nucleic acid chirality.
To present recent advances in the construction of nucleic acid-based chiral nanostructures.
To highlight the emerging biomedical applications of these nanostructures.

Main Methods:

Introduction to chiral geometries of DNA and L-nucleic acids.
Discussion of recent progress in synthesizing nucleic acid-based chiral nanostructures.
Overview of biomedical applications, focusing on emerging areas.

Main Results:

Nucleic acids inherently possess chirality, enabling the design of sophisticated nanostructures.
Various chiral forms of nucleic acids contribute to diverse structural and functional outcomes.
Emerging applications demonstrate the potential of these nanostructures in biomedicine.

Conclusions:

Nucleic acid-based chiral nanostructures offer promising avenues for biomedical innovation.
Further research is needed to overcome challenges and explore future prospects.
Continued development in this field holds significant potential for therapeutic and diagnostic advancements.