Dissociation in a polymerization model of homochirality

A. Brandenburg*, A. C. Andersen, M. Nilsson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A fully self-contained model of homochirality is presented that contains the effects of both polymerization and dissociation. The dissociation fragments are assumed to replenish the substrate from which new monomers can grow and undergo new polymerization. The mean length of isotactic polymers is found to grow slowly with the normalized total number of corresponding building blocks. Alternatively, if one assumes that the dissociation fragments themselves can polymerize further, then this corresponds to a strong source of short polymers, and an unrealistically short average length of only 3. By contrast, without dissociation, isotactic polymers becomes infinitely long.

Original languageEnglish
JournalOrigins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere
Volume35
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)507-521
Number of pages15
ISSN0169-6149
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2005

Keywords

  • DNA polymerization
  • Enantiomeric cross-inhibition
  • Origin of homochirality Revision: 1.41

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