Za zrcadlem: ambidextrie chemie života

Pšenička, Simon

Ever since the discovery of life's preference for left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars (biological homochirality), many have been pondering how and why it arose. After more than a hundred and fifty years of research in this area, we are still looking for satisfactory answers. Is all life of the same handedness? Could there be alien life of the opposite handedness? Why did life on Earth choose left- handed amino acids and right-handed sugars? Can life function even without the homochirality of biomolecules? Questions like these are better addressed with a deeper knowledge of the chirality of biomolecules and possible routes to homochiral life. This field has been actively researched recently, leading to proposals of possible mechanisms promoting chiral asymmetry. Our grasp of life's chemistry has progressed to a point where mirror life synthesis is conceivable, and the dangers and implications of such an endeavor are being discussed. More importantly, many experiments and theoretical works have investigated ways of enriching molecules over their mirror image to better understand the origins of biological homochirality. Here, these homochirality-promoting mechanisms and their prebiotic relevance are reviewed, as well as their implications for the possibility of alien mirror life. A...

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