Jenna Dickie

Homochirality: The Precursor to Life

A topic that is debated time and time again in the scientific community to this day is the

origin of homochirality and its connection to the beginning of life on earth. We, as scientists,

know that there is a connection because molecules are only naturally found in one of their

possible mirror images. The fact that it has a mirror image that is not identical is chirality, and

the fact that one chirality s greatly favoured is homochirality. Some of the most significant

examples of homochirality are the 20 natural amino acids; 19 of these amino acids are L-chiral or

“left-handed.” Additionally, when something is D-chiral, it is considered “right-handed.” The

beginning of this left-handed favouritism in the natural amino acids would indicate the origin of

homochirality as we know it. Homochirality preceded life itself because proteins made of demi

chiral amino acids are consistently less stable, and there is evidence that homochirality was

present in space. 

There is proof that proteins made of L amino acids were more stable and plausible to be

building blocks in a prebiotic world rather than their demi chiral counterparts. When proteins are

demi chiral, they contain equal numbers of D and L amino acids. Modern proteins that consist of

L amino acids have a different TM-score as a protein made synthetically with a combination of

D and L amino acids. For context, the TM-score measures the similarity between two separate

protein structures. The tests concluded that the demi chiral proteins made of D and L amino acids

were 53% less stable than their native counterparts (Skolnick, Gao, 2021). Since they are more

stable, products made of L amino acids would have been more likely to exist prebiotically rather

than their less stable demi chiral counterparts. Additionally, demi chiral proteins cannot find as
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many KEGG pathways as the naturally-derived L proteins. KEGG pathways are responsible for

connecting interacting molecules responsible for specific cellular functions; without pathways to

these functions, it would be much harder to do cellular tasks like self replicate. So when demi

chiral proteins could only find 17.7% of KEGG pathways that the L chiral proteins could see,

86% of it also defends the claim that they would not have been able to thrive or possibly even

survive naturally in a prebiotic world (Skolnick et al., 2019). All in all, the demonstrated

instability of these proteins shows that they would be unlikely to exist compared to their purely

homochiral counterparts naturally in a world before life. 

Homochirality was present in space before life on earth. Meteorites that could have

outdated earth have an excess of homochiral molecules. For example, scientists did an analysis

on a meteorite that was approximately 4.5 billion years old. Specifically, there was 82% more of

the D version of lyxonic acid, and here was over 90% more of the D version of Xylonic acid

(Cooper, Rios, 2016). This significant bias of the “right-handed” version of these acids in such

an old meteorite proves an abiotic beginning to homochirality. Furthermore, the primordial soup

of early earth favoured L peptides. We can see this favouritism by examining how well L

peptides can evolve in this environment compared to D-L peptides. This was demonstrated by

the fact that 61 of the 100 D-L peptides could not create secondary structures, but only 46 out of

100 were not able to develop secondary systems for the L peptides. In a primordial soup

environment, the ability to create secondary structures was crucial, proving that it is more

probable that L peptides were components in the primordial soup (Oda et al., 2019). In

conclusion, the insights provided by extraterrestrial environments display that homochirality was

present before life on earth. 

Jenna Dickie

Some would argue that creating cross chiral RNA synthetically proves that it could have

existed in a prebiotic environment. This argument is proven useless unless the specific conditions

of the experiment were similar to those of a prebiotic earth. The experiment was deemed

successful yet it was done at unrealistic temperatures. Included in the method of this experiment

was the following instructions “heat until 70°C for 3 minutes and then slowly cooled to 23°C”

(Sczepanski, Joyce, 2014). If this experiment was only possible by conducting this exact method,

it is doubtful it would have ever happened in a prebiotic environment. This is due to the fact that

a team of researchers from Georgia Tech were doing an experiment involving probiotic peptides,

they conducted their experiment at 85°C but the lowest temperature they got agreeing results was

55°C (Forsythe et al., 2017). The researchers took into account known volcanic activity and

atmospheric mix to come up with a more accurate depiction of the temperature. Just because this

cross chiral RNA was synthetically made it does not mean it has ever appeared in nature

especially when then parameters of the experiment were not accurate in the first place. 

Time and time again, throughout multiple experiments, scientists have proved that

particles, proteins, or peptides that were homochiral were the more robust and more stable base

for life. Furthermore, L amino acids dominate our lives today; their proven stability against their

D-L counterparts demonstrates that it would have been easiest to build life out of the most stable

building blocks. Additionally, the fact that homochirality was dominant in extraterrestrial

enviroments as well as the primordial soup proves the likelihood of a similar situation before the

evolution of life on earth. All in all, homochirality originated before life on earth because of the

dominance and power L amnio acids had over D-L counterparts and the fact that extraterrestrial
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environments displayed homochirality. This topic divides scientists to this day, but why?

Truthfully this scientific debate does not affect our daily lives, and if we ever discovered the

outcome, it would not change how we understand science completely. 

Jenna Dickie

References

Cooper, G., & Rios, A. (2016, June 14). Enantiomer excesses of rare and common sugar
derivatives in carbonaceous meteorites. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/24/E3322

Forsythe, J., Petrov, A., Millar, W., Yu, S., Krishnamurthy, R., Grover, M., Fernández, F. (2017,
September 12). Surveying the sequence diversity of model prebiotic peptides by mass
spectrometry. https://www.pnas.org/content/114/37/E7652.abstract

Oda, A., Nakayoshi, T., Kato, K., Fukuyoshi, S., & Kurimoto, E. (2019, August 12). Three
dimensional structures of putative, primitive proteins to investigate the origin of
homochirality. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-48134-z

Sczepanski, J., & Joyce, G. (2014, October 29). A cross-chiral RNA polymerase ribozyme.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13900

Skolnick, J., & Gao, M. (2021, January 20). On the emergence of homochirality and life itself.
https://portlandpress.com/biochemist/article/43/1/4/227630/On-the-emergence-of-
homochirality-and-life-itself

Skolnick, J., Zhou, H., & Gao, M. (2019, December 26). On the possible origin of protein
homochirality, structure, and biochemical function.
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/52/26571