this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
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I would think that evolution already tried this and was a complete failure? If no life on Earth uses such mirrored cells? Can anyone explain to my dumb ass?
You're not wrong. The hypothesis that I'm familiar with says that there's a lower energy barrier to using L-amino acids when forming a peptide bond. But favoring one configuration over the other doesn't mean exclusivity. As far as I know, we haven't fully been able to explain why every organism on earth uses the same configuration.
I thought that part of it at least was that much like existing life has a harder time breaking down these mirror proteins the same is true in reverse. So any life that was mirror protein based would struggle with consuming and gaining energy. As such the current protein chirality basically won by being first to market. That being said I don't see why that would hamper reverse chirality photosynthesis, and I don't really know what I'm talking about so perhaps your suggestion is more convincing after all.
I must not either, because I usually just assume that people who actually use the word chirality in a sentence tend to know what they're talking about.