Questions tagged [chirality]
It concerns a type of molecule that has a non-superposable mirror image.
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What determines the spiral direction of plants?
Some plants and vines spiral clockwise as they go along (right direction) and some spiral anticlockwise (left direction). What determines which direction they spiral along? At first, I believed it to ...
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Why are amino acids in biology homochiral?
Why are nearly all amino acids in organisms left-handed (exception is glycine which has no isomer) when abiotic samples typical have an even mix of left- and right-handed molecules?
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Chirality of anti-bodies
Do anti-bodies in the blood stream present chirality?
I am interested in this question from a mathematical and physical point of view. A person allowed to travel through a fourth spatial dimension is ...
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How correlated is the chirality of different molecules?
In astrobiology, a proposed way of testing whether life found on another world is alien or originates from Earth is to determine the chirality of its molecules. This is of course only useful when the ...
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Is it possible to synthesize chiral version of an organism (incompatible with our pathogens)?
In theory, it should be possible to synthesize chiral (mirror image) version of some organism: with all molecules replaced with their enantiomers, e.g. L-sugars in place of our D-sugars.
Direct ...
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Does the lack of "mirror life" tell us anything about abiogenesis?
My (extremely rudimentary) understanding of Biology is that many of the building blocks of life are chiral and that life on earth is entirely made up molecules with the same chirality.
Does this ...
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What would be the fate of protein made from D-amino acids after ingestion by humans?
There are some natural peptides made of D-amino acids, rather than the L-amino acids normally found in nature. It is now possible to chemically synthesize artificial proteins made of D-amino acids.
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Question about Racemic Mixtures in Miller-Urey Experiment
I'm studying the Miller-Urey Experiment for my Biology class, and a significant point made by my professor was that Miller made a 50/50 racemic mixture of chiral monomers.
However, life is homochiral....
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Do different chiral centers on ligands cause different confirmational changes and effects in their target proteins?
Say pathogenic bacteriaA makes toxinA, which had D-amino acids instead of L-amino aids, does this difference in chirality cause a different conformational change in the receptor or enzyme, thus ...
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Amino acids in human cancer cells expose dextrorotation?
I would like to know if the amino acids in the human cancer cells are dextrorotatory or levorotatory.
I mean the majority of them.
They expose levorotation just like the amino acids in the normal ...
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Is there any evolutionary advantage of selection of L-amino acid over D-amino acid?
After listening to a scientific talk, I had this question that why in the natural selection process, are the L-amino acids selected over the D- form. However, we still we produce D-amino acids; ...
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Chiral (a)symmetry of curly hair (and fur)
Some people have curly hair, as well as fur of some animals can be curly.
However, shapes which are curly are not mirror symmetric, much alike screws or chiral molecules.
The question is whether ...
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What happens to dextrorotatory amino acids in humans?
As indicated by this question, most of the amino acids in the human body have the L-chirality. As enzymes also have handedness, what happens to the D-amino acids that end up within the human body? Are ...
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