Life's homochirality: Across a prebiotic network

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ozturk, S. Furkan; Sasselov, Dimitar D.
• 署名单位: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Smithsonian Institution; Harvard University; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10762
• 发表日期: 2025-08-26
• 关键词: acids

摘要

For centuries, scientists have been puzzled by the mystery of life's biomolecular homochirality-the singlehandedness of biological compounds. Sugars and nucleic acids are right-handed, while amino acids are left-handed in biological systems. Likewise, certain metabolites are homochiral, though their handedness varies. However, efforts to address the homochirality problem have often focused on a single compound, a single molecular class, or invoke an extraterrestrial origin. Here, we emphasize the importance of achieving homochirality across an entire prebiotic chemical network and explore a terrestrial pathway for its emergence. This pathway is supported by recent experimental results from several independent studies, as well as analyses of pristine asteroid materials. Our analysis identifies the genome as a key site for achieving network-scale homochirality on early Earth and addresses the opposite handedness of D-nucleic acids and L-peptides in biology through nonenzymatic, stereoselective coded peptide synthesis.