On the biogenic origins of homochirality

Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere : the Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life
Victor Sojo

Abstract

Homochirality, the single-handedness of optically asymmetric chemical structures, is present in all major biological macromolecules. Terrestrial life's preference for one isomer over its mirror image in D-sugars and L-amino acids has both fascinated and puzzled biochemists for over a century. But the contrasting case of the equally fundamental phospholipids has received less attention. Although the phospholipid glycerol headgroups of archaea and bacteria are both exclusively homochiral, the stereochemistries between the two domains are opposite. Here I argue that the reason for this "dual homochirality" was a simple evolutionary choice at the independent origin of the two synthesizing enzymes. More broadly, this points to a trivial biogenic cause for the evolution of homochirality: the enzymatic processes that produce chiral biomolecules are stereospecific in nature. Once an orientation has been favored, shifting to the opposite is both difficult and unnecessary. Homochirality is thus the simplest and most parsimonious evolutionary case.

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Citations

Feb 4, 2016·Astrobiology·Victor SojoNick Lane
Dec 3, 2014·Lancet·Jeanette Vega, Patricia Frenz
Apr 11, 2019·BioEssays : News and Reviews in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology·Victor Sojo
Sep 2, 2015·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Eugene V Koonin
Mar 10, 2015·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Nick Lane
Jul 20, 2016·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Eugene V Koonin
Nov 7, 2019·Nature Ecology & Evolution·Sean F JordanNick Lane
Aug 14, 2020·Astrobiology·Michael A FamianoToshio Suzuki
Feb 2, 2021·Bio Systems·Sávio Torres de FariasFrancisco Prosdocimi
Jul 7, 2021·Chembiochem : a European Journal of Chemical Biology·Hannah S MartinNeal K Devaraj

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