Chemistry: Scientists Unlock Mystery of How 'Handedness' Arises in Proteins, Other Functional Molecules

Most of the proteins and other molecules in our body can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, but our body only prefers one of these forms. This is known as chirality. Thomas G. Mason has been exploring how and why this chirality arises. He said, "objects like our hands are chiral, while objects like regular triangles are achiral, meaning they dont have handedness to help them." These can be easily superimposed on top of one another. Still a mystery to scientists is the concept that only one of the two chiral forms can exist in one body. "Our bodies contain important molecules like proteins that overwhelmingly have one type of chirality," Mason said. "The other chiral form is essentially not found. I find that fascinating." In the image to the left, the colored outlines in the field of triangles indicate chiral super-structures having particular orientations. Mason says that the cause for this phenomenon is entropy. His group has shown for the first time that chiral structures can originate from physical entropic forces acting on uniform achiral particles.

         This is an example of discovery science because the scientist, Thomas G. Mason, has been doing experiments on this for a while. This discovery benefits humans because it helps us understand why and how we each have a dominant, stronger hand. Even though some people can be ambidextrous, everybody has one hand that is clearly dominant to the other. One cannot be right handed and left handed at the same time.

 

 

University of California - Los Angeles. "Chemistry: Scientists unlock mystery of how 'handedness' arises in proteins, other functional molecules." ScienceDaily, 8 May 2012. Web. 9 May 2012.