Chiral purity of nucleotides as a necessary condition of complementarity.
This work discusses the question about the role of chiral purity (homochirality) of nucleotides in the formation of complementary replicas. A qualitative answer to this question can be obtained from molecular models constructed to simulate the chiral defect in the polynucleotidic chain. It shows the necessity of homochirality of nucleotides for the complementarity preservation. The necessity of the strong mirror-symmetry breaking in the abiogenic formation of the self-replicating oligonucleotide structures is discussed in the context of prebiological evolution.
D004261:DNA Replication; D008958:Models, Molecular; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation