title: Noise-Induced Mechanism for Biological Homochirality of Early Life Self-Replicators.
abstract: The observed single-handedness of biological amino acids and sugars has long been attributed to autocatalysis. However, the stability of homochiral states in deterministic autocatalytic systems relies on cross inhibition of the two chiral states, an unlikely scenario for early life self-replicators. Here, we present a theory for a stochastic individual-level model of autocatalysis due to early life self-replicators. Without chiral inhibition, the racemic state is the global attractor of the deterministic dynamics, but intrinsic multiplicative noise stabilizes the homochiral states, in both well-mixed and spatially extended systems. We conclude that autocatalysis is a viable mechanism for homochirality, without imposing additional nonlinearities such as chiral inhibition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Loomis Laboratory of Physics, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Farshid
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jafarpour
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Loomis Laboratory of Physics, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Tommaso
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Biancalani
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Loomis Laboratory of Physics, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080, USA and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1206 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Nigel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Goldenfeld
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry; D000605:Amino Alcohols / Q000097:blood; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D013237:Stereoisomerism; D013269:Stochastic Processes
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D000605:Amino Alcohols