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arxiv: 1402.0995 · v1 · pith:TX4KDJ3Inew · submitted 2014-02-05 · ⚛️ physics.bio-ph · q-bio.BM

The role of carbohydrates at the origin of homochirality in biosystems

classification ⚛️ physics.bio-ph q-bio.BM
keywords chiralhomochiralhomochiralityperformbreakingcarbohydratescomponentsdiscrimination
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Pasteur has demonstrated that the chiral components in a racemic mixture can separate in homochiral crystals. But with a strong chiral discrimination the chiral components in a concentrated mixture can also phase separate into homochiral fluid domains, and the isomerization kinetics can then perform a symmetry breaking into one thermodynamical stable homochiral system. Glyceraldehyde has a sufficient chiral discrimination to perform such a symmetry breaking. The requirement of a high concentration of the chiral reactant(s) in an aqueous solution in order to perform and $\textit{maintain}$ homochirality; the appearance of phosphorylation of almost all carbohydrates in the central machinery of life; the basic ideas that the biochemistry and the glycolysis and gluconeogenesis contain the trace of the biochemical evolution, all point in the direction of that homochirality was obtained just after- or at a phosphorylation of the very first products of the formose reaction, at high concentrations of the reactants in phosphate rich compartments in submarine hydrothermal vents. A racemic solution of D,L-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate could be the template for obtaining homochiral D-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate(aq) as well as L-amino acids.

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