Chiral interactions in biomolecules

From reactants to products via simple hydrogen-bonding networks: Information transmission in chemical reactions

The transmission of information is ubiquitous in nature and often occurs through supramolecular hydrogen bonding processes. Here we report that there is a remarkable correlation during synthesis between the efficiency of the hydrogen-bond-directed assembly of peptide-based [2]rotaxanes and the symmetry distortion of the macrocycle in the structure of the final product. It transpires that the ability of the flexible macrocycle-precursor to wrap around an unsymmetrical hydrogen bonding template affects both the reaction yield and a quantifiable measure of the symmetry distortion of the macrocycle in the product. When the yields of peptide rotaxane-forming reactions are high, so is the symmetry distortion in the macrocycle; when the yields are low, indicating a poor fit between the components, the macrocycle symmetry is relatively unaffected by the thread. Thus during a synthetic sequence, as in complex biological assembly processes, hydrogen bonding can code and transmit "information"--in this case a distortion from symmetry--between chemical entities by means of a supramolecularly driven multicomponent assembly process. If this phenomenon is general, it could have far reaching consequences for the use of supramolecular-directed reactions in organic chemistry.

Origin of the homochirality of biomolecules

Molecules built up from a given set of atoms may differ in their three-dimensional structure. They may have one or more asymmetric centres that serve as reference points for the steric distribution of the atoms. Carbon atoms, common to all biomolecules, are often such centres. For example, the Cα atom between the carboxyl and amino groups in amino acids is an asymmetric centre: looking ON ward (i.e. from the carbOxyl to the amiNo group, with the Cα oriented so that it is above the carboxyl and amino groups) the radical characterizing the amino acid may be to the right (D-molecules) or to the left (L-molecules). Nineteen of the 20 amino acids occurring in proteins have such a structure (the exception is glycine, where the radical is a hydrogen atom). These pairs of molecules cannot be brought into coincidence with their own mirror image, as is the situation with our hands. The phenomenon has therefore been named handedness, or chirality, from the Greek word cheir, meaning hand. The two forms of the chiral molecules are called enantiomers or antipodes. They differ in rotating the plane of the polarized light either to the right or to the left. The sense of rotation depends on the wavelength of the measuring light, but at a given wavelength it is always opposite for a pair of enantiomers. Chirality may also occur when achiral molecules form chiral substances during crystallization (for example, quartz forms D-quartz or Lquartz). A detailed theoretical treatment of molecular chirality is given by Barron (1991).

Asymmetries of nature and the origin of biomolecular handedness

New developments in the problem of the origin of the asymmetry of the living systems are reviewed. The time of the appearance of the asymmetry was very probably during the chemical evolution. The asymmetry of weak interaction is still considered small to be the cause of chiral purity. New sources of asymmetry should also be considered, like the one proposed by Gilat.