Department of Physics and Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, Western Michigan Univ., 1903 W. Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI, 49008-5252, USA.
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8588, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jun 11;8(1):8833. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-27110-z.
Magnetochiral phenomena may be responsible for the selection of chiral states of biomolecules in meteoric environments. For example, the Supernova Amino Acid Processing (SNAAP) Model was proposed previously as a possible mode of magnetochiral selection of amino acids by way of the weak interaction in strong magnetic fields. In earlier work, this model was shown to produce an enantiomeric excess (ee) as high as 0.014% for alanine. In this paper we present the results of molecular quantum chemistry calculations from which ees are determined for the α-amino acids plus isovaline and norvaline, which were found to have positive ees in meteorites. Calculations are performed for both isolated and aqueous states. In some cases, the aqueous state was found to produce larger ees reaching values as high as a few percent under plausible conditions.
磁手性现象可能是导致天体环境中生物分子手性状态选择的原因。例如，先前提出了超新星氨基酸加工（SNAAP）模型，作为通过强磁场中的弱相互作用对手性氨基酸进行磁手性选择的一种可能模式。在早期的工作中，该模型显示出的丙氨酸对映体过量（ee）高达 0.014%。在本文中，我们介绍了分子量子化学计算的结果，从中确定了α-氨基酸加异亮氨酸和正亮氨酸的 ee 值，这些氨基酸在陨石中被发现具有正 ee 值。计算同时针对孤立状态和水相状态进行。在某些情况下，水相状态下产生的 ee 值更大，在合理的条件下可达百分之几。
