Inoue Masayuki, Saito Kai, Aoyama Hinao, Inoue Haruya, Ohnuki Ryosuke, Yoshioka Shinya
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Yamazaki, Noda, 278-8510, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):20968. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-05750-2.
Some brilliantly colored butterflies are known to possess gyroid photonic crystals in the wing scale. As the gyroid structure is inherently chiral, it is an intriguing question whether the structure has enantiomeric purity or not, considering that biomolecules exhibit homochirality. It has been previously reported for a few lycaenid species that both enantiomeric forms of the gyroid structure are found in multidomain photonic crystals. In this study, we evaluated the chirality of gyroid crystals in the wing scales of the papilionid butterfly Teinopalpus imperialis and found only one enantiomeric form (LH-type) in more than 200 gyroid crystals examined. In another papilionid butterfly, Parides sesostris, the populations of the two enantiomeric forms were found to be highly unbalanced. Because the gyroid crystals of these two butterflies are known to have a strong orientation preference along the surface normal of the scale, we suggest that crystal orientation-controlled development is related to chirality selection. Our findings provide insights into chirality-selected gyroid synthesis in self-organization processes.
已知一些色彩绚丽的蝴蝶在翅鳞片中拥有螺旋状光子晶体。由于螺旋状结构本质上是手性的，考虑到生物分子表现出同手性，该结构是否具有对映体纯度是一个有趣的问题。此前已有报道称，在一些灰蝶物种的多域光子晶体中发现了螺旋状结构的两种对映体形式。在本研究中，我们评估了凤蝶科蝴蝶金斑喙凤蝶翅鳞片中螺旋状晶体的手性，在所检测的200多个螺旋状晶体中仅发现了一种对映体形式（左旋型）。在另一种凤蝶——统帅青凤蝶中，发现两种对映体形式的数量极不均衡。由于已知这两种蝴蝶的螺旋状晶体沿鳞片表面法线具有强烈的取向偏好，我们认为晶体取向控制的发育与手性选择有关。我们的研究结果为自组织过程中手性选择的螺旋状合成提供了见解。
