scholarly journals On the emergence of homochirality and life itself

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Skolnick ◽  
Mu Gao
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Protein Synthesis ◽  
Hydrogen Bonding ◽  
Secondary Structure ◽  
Building Block ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Native State ◽  
Protein Properties ◽  
Life Itself

Many of life’s molecules including proteins are built from chiral building blocks. What drove homochiral building block selection? Simulations on demi-chiral proteins containing equal numbers of d- and l-amino acids show that they possess many modern homochiral protein properties. They have the same global folds and could do the same biochemistry, with ancient, essential functions being most prevalent. They could synthesize chiral RNA and lipids which formed vesicles. RNA eventually combined with proteins creating ribosomes for more efficient protein synthesis, and thus, life began. Increased native state stability from homochiral secondary structure hydrogen bonding helped drive proteins towards homochirality.

scholarly journals Synthesis of new Cα-tetrasubstituted α-amino acids

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas A Grauer ◽  
Burkhard König
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Secondary Structure ◽  
Aromatic Aldehydes ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Reaction Conditions ◽  
Peptide Backbone ◽  
Aliphatic Aldehydes ◽  
New Class ◽  
Cyclic Amino Acids

Cα-Tetrasubstituted α-amino acids are important building blocks for the synthesis of peptidemimetics with stabilized secondary structure, because of their ability to rigidify the peptide backbone. Recently our group reported a new class of cyclic Cα-tetrasubstituted tetrahydrofuran α-amino acids prepared from methionine and aromatic aldehydes. We now report the extension of this methodology to aliphatic aldehydes. Although such aldehydes are prone to give aldol products under the reaction conditions used, we were able to obtain the target cyclic amino acids in low to moderate yields and in some cases with good diastereoselectivity.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF AMINO ACIDS IN PROTEINS BY THE SELF-ORGANIZING MAP

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 1609-1616 ◽  
Author(s):  
MOOKYUNG CHEON ◽  
MUYOUNG HEO ◽  
IKSOO CHANG ◽  
CHOONGRAK KIM
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Secondary Structure ◽  
Protein Structures ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Side Chain ◽  
Self Organizing Map ◽  
Energy Parameters ◽  
Physico Chemical ◽  
Body Energy ◽  
Self Organizing

We present the clustering properties of amino acids, which are building blocks of proteins, according to their physico-chemical characters. To classify the 20 kinds of amino acids, we employ a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) analysis for the Miyazawa-Jernigan (MJ) pairwise-contact matrix, the Environment-dependent One-body energy Parameters (EOP) and the one-body energy parameters incorporating the Ramachandran angle information (EOPR) over the EOP in proteins. We provide the new result of the SOM clustering for amino acids based on the EOPR and compare that with those from the MJ and the EOP matrix. All three kinds of energy parameters capture the leading role played by the hydrophobicity and the hydrophilicity of amino acids in protein folding. Our SOM analysis generally illustrates that both the EOP and the EOPR can provide the collective clustering of amino acids by the side chain characteristics and the secondary structure information. However, EOP is better at classifying amino acids according to their side chain characteristics whereas EOPR is better with secondary structure. We show that the EOP and the EOPR matrix manifests more detailed physico-chemical classification of amino acids than those from the MJ matrix, which does not contain a local environmental information of amino acids in the protein structures.

scholarly journals Advances in Enzymatic Synthesis of D-Amino Acids

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 3206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loredano Pollegioni ◽  
Elena Rosini ◽  
Gianluca Molla
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Protein Synthesis ◽  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Enzymatic Synthesis ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Fine Chemicals ◽  
Physiological Functions ◽  
The Past

In nature, the D-enantiomers of amino acids (D-AAs) are not used for protein synthesis and during evolution acquired specific and relevant physiological functions in different organisms. This is the reason for the surge in interest and investigations on these “unnatural” molecules observed in recent years. D-AAs are increasingly used as building blocks to produce pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. In past years, a number of methods have been devised to produce D-AAs based on enantioselective enzymes. With the aim to increase the D-AA derivatives generated, to improve the intrinsic atomic economy and cost-effectiveness, and to generate processes at low environmental impact, recent studies focused on identification, engineering and application of enzymes in novel biocatalytic processes. The aim of this review is to report the advances in synthesis of D-AAs gathered in the past few years based on five main classes of enzymes. These enzymes have been combined and thus applied to multi-enzymatic processes representing in vitro pathways of alternative/exchangeable enzymes that allow the generation of an artificial metabolism for D-AAs synthetic purposes.

Homochirality as the Signature of Extra-Terrestrial Life

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 505-510
Author(s):  
Alexandra J. MacDermott ◽  
Laurence D. Barron ◽  
Andrè Brack ◽  
Thomas Buhse ◽  
John R. Cronin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Protein Synthesis ◽  
Optical Rotation ◽  
Physical Origin ◽  
Natural Choice ◽  
Rosetta Mission ◽  
Terrestrial Life ◽  
Subsurface Layers ◽  
Solar System Bodies ◽  
Origin Of Homochirality

AbstractThe most characteristic hallmark of life is its homochirality: all biomolecules are usually of one hand, e.g. on Earth life uses only L-amino acids for protein synthesis and not their D mirror images. We therefore suggest that a search for extra-terrestrial life can be approached as a Search for Extra- Terrestrial Homochirality (SETH). The natural choice for a SETH instrument is optical rotation, and we describe a novel miniaturized space polarimeter, called the SETH Cigar, which could be used to detect optical rotation as the homochiral signature of life on other planets. Moving parts are avoided by replacing the normal rotating polarizer by multiple fixed polarizers at different angles as in the eye of the bee. We believe that homochirality may be found in the subsurface layers on Mars as a relic of extinct life, and on other solar system bodies as a sign of advanced pre-biotic chemistry. We discuss the chiral GC-MS planned for the Roland lander of the Rosetta mission to a comet and conclude with theories of the physical origin of homochirality.

Thienopyrrolocarbazoles: New Building Blocks for Functional Organic Materials

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorian Bader ◽  
Johannes Fröhlich ◽  
Paul Kautny
Keyword(s):  
Building Block ◽  
Organic Materials ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Molecular Properties ◽  
The Family ◽  
Facile Preparation

The facile preparation of three regioisomeric thienopyrrolocarbazoles applying a convenient C-H activation approach is presented. Derived from indolo[3,2,1-<i>jk</i>]carbazole, the incorporation of thiophene into the triarylamine framework significantly impacted the molecular properties of the parent scaffold. The developed thienopyrrolocarbazoles enrich the family of triarylamine donors and constitute a novel building block for functional organic materials.

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