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. 2022 Sep;52(1-3):105-111.
doi: 10.1007/s11084-022-09620-z. Epub 2022 Apr 20.

Molecular Self-Assembly as a Trigger of Life Origin and Development

Dmitry V Zlenko  1   2   3 , Anatoly M Zanin  4 , Sergey V Stovbun  4
Affiliations

Molecular Self-Assembly as a Trigger of Life Origin and Development

Dmitry V Zlenko et al. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2022 Sep.

Abstract

The origin and reason for the homochirality of living cells go with the problem of a relatively narrow spectrum of the actual biological monomers compared to the whole theoretically possible spectrum of amino acids or carbohydrates. A limited number of bio-monomers implies some special feature differing from all other similar molecules that are not present in the living cell. Here we propose one of the candidates for such a peculiarity: the ability to form highly elongated helical supramolecular structures (strings) when precipitating from homochiral solutions. The strings' forming can be accompanied by spontaneous splitting and/or chiral purification of the initially racemic mixture. Our previous theoretical reasoning was based mainly on the biomimetic systems, while now we describe the strings forming in homochiral amino acid solutions.

Keywords: Chirality; Origin of Life; Self-Assembly.

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