Spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking in heterocatalytically coupled enantioselective replicators

Chem Sci. 2017 Jan 1;8(1):763-769. doi: 10.1039/c6sc02446g. Epub 2016 Sep 13.

Abstract

Chiral hypercycle replicators (first-order autocatalysis together with mutual cross-catalysis) formed from achiral or racemizing resources may lead to spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking (SMSB) without the need for additional heterochiral inhibition reactions, such as those of the Frank-like models, which are an obstacle for the emergence of evolutionary selection properties. The results indicate that the chemical models for the emergence of primordial autocatalytic self-reproducing systems, of and by themselves, can also explain naturally the emergence of biological homochirality.