Why Are Biological Systems Homochiral?

Abstract

Self‐assembling and self‐organizable dendrons, dendrimers, and dendronized polymers produce chiral supramolecular architectures that have been developed as biological mimics. Here we review our work on the self‐assembly of homochiral, heterochiral, and racemic dendritic dipeptides, and address one of the most fundamental questions of biological systems: Why are biological systems homochiral and not heterochiral or racemic and, if they were heterochiral or racemic, how would they look and function by comparison with contemporary homochiral biological systems?

Effects of molecular chirality on superstructural chirality in liquid crystalline dark conglomerate phases

“…the spontaneous formation of chiral superstructures with uniform chirality over macroscopic dimensions, achieved by self-assembly of achiral or racemic molecules, has been a core research topic since it was discovered by Pasteur. 1,2 Recently, work on the phenomenon of spontaneous reflection symmetry breaking in supramolecular ensembles 3-5 has moved into fluid liquid crystalline (LC) phases, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] namely LC phases formed by bent-core molecules. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Superstructural chirality in the LC phases of these materials result from the polar order in their lamellar (smectic) LC phases (SmCP A , SmCP F , see Fig.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of New 2D Coordination Polymers based on Mn(NCS)2 and Ni(NCS)2 with 1, 2‐Bis(4‐pyridyl)‐ethane as Co‐Ligand

“…Spontaneous symmetry breaking, especially the formation of chiral superstructures by molecular self‐assembly of achiral molecules or racemic mixtures of chiral molecules is of actual interest in pursuit of generation of chiral nanostructures 1. Recently, work on spontaneous reflection symmetry breaking has moved from crystalline assemblies into the field of fluid liquid crystalline superstructures,2, 3 namely LC phases formed by bent‐core molecules, for which spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral superstructures was observed in smectic (lamellar) phases,4–8 B4‐type soft crystal phases9, 10 and nematic phases 11. In the lamellar phases of bent core mesogens the molecular bend restricts the rotation of the molecules around their long axes.…”

Merging Macromolecular and Supramolecular Chemistry into Bioinspired Synthesis of Complex Systems

“…A most unusual supramolecular column assembled from supramolecular spheres was also observed for the first time . Fundamental questions such as why the classic “sergeant and soldiers” and “majority rules” are not being employed by biology were also addressed with these tools (Figure ) …”