The DOI matches its Crossref record; 68 of the 70 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A chiroselective peptide replicator
Abstract
The origin of homochirality in living systems is often attributed to the generation of enantiomeric differences in a pool of chiral prebiotic molecules, but none of the possible physiochemical processes considered can produce the significant imbalance required if homochiral biopolymers are to result from simple coupling of suitable precursor molecules. This implies a central role either for additional processes that can selectively amplify an initially minute enantiomeric difference in the starting material, or for a nonenzymatic process by which biopolymers undergo chiroselective molecular replication. Given that molecular self-replication and the capacity for selection are necessary conditions for the emergence of life, chiroselective replication of biopolymers seems a particularly attractive process for explaining homochirality in nature. Here we report that a 32-residue peptide replicator, designed according to our earlier principles, is capable of efficiently amplifying homochiral products from a racemic mixture of peptide fragments through a chiroselective autocatalytic cycle. The chiroselective amplification process discriminates between structures possessing even single stereochemical mutations within otherwise homochiral sequences. Moreover, the system exhibits a dynamic stereochemical 'editing' function; in contrast to the previously observed error correction, it makes use of heterochiral sequences that arise through uncatalysed background reactions to catalyse the production of the homochiral product. These results support the idea that self-replicating polypeptides could have played a key role in the origin of homochirality on Earth.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Electrophilic and nucleophilic 16-residue peptide fragments of the same handedness were preferentially ligated, even in the presence of their enantiomers (ca.70% of diastereomeric excess was reached when peptide fragments E L , E D , N E , and N D were engaged, Fig. 21).”
From Possible chemical and physical scenarios towards biological homochirality (2022) · cites this paper as [539]
In the citing paper
“The process is very sensitive to the optical purity of the substrates, fragments embedding a single (S)/(R) amino acid substitution lacked significant auto-catalytic properties.”
From Possible chemical and physical scenarios towards biological homochirality (2022) · cites this paper as [539]
In the citing paper
“On the contrary, stereochemical mismatches were tolerated in the replicator; single mutated templates were able to couple homochiral fragments”
From Possible chemical and physical scenarios towards biological homochirality (2022) · cites this paper as [539]
In the citing paper
“Schematic representation of the stereoselective replication of peptide residues with the same handedness.”
From Possible chemical and physical scenarios towards biological homochirality (2022) · cites this paper as [539]
Citations
Cites
Crystallography & NMR System: A New Software Suite for Macromolecular Structure Determination
Brünger, A. T., Adams, P. D., Clore, G. M., DeLano, W. L., Gros, P., Grosse‐Kunstleve, R. W., Jiang, J., Kuszewski, J. J., Nilges, M., Pannu, N., et al. (1998) · Acta Crystallographica Section D Biological Crystallography · doi:10.1107/s0907444998003254 · Cited by 15,723
Micromechanics of defects in solids
Mura, T. (1987) · Mechanics of elastic and inelastic solids · doi:10.1007/978-94-009-3489-4 · Cited by 5,563
Synthesis of Proteins by Native Chemical Ligation
Dawson, P. E., Muir, T. W., Clark‐Lewis, I., & Kent, S. B. H. (1994) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.7973629 · Cited by 4,190
Activation of a member of the steroid hormone receptor superfamily by peroxisome proliferators
Issemann, I., & Green, S. (1990) · Nature · doi:10.1038/347645a0 · Cited by 3,519
Shiau, A. K., Barstad, D., Loria, P. M., Cheng, L., Kushner, P. J., Agard, D. A., & Greene, G. L. (1998) · Cell · doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)81717-1 · Cited by 2,759
Sequence and Characterization of a Coactivator for the Steroid Hormone Receptor Superfamily
Oñate, S. A., Tsai, S. Y., Tsai, M., & O’Malley, B. W. (1995) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.270.5240.1354 · Cited by 2,398
A signature motif in transcriptional co-activators mediates binding to nuclear receptors
Heery, D. M., Kalkhoven, E., Hoare, S., & Parker, M. G. (1997) · Nature · doi:10.1038/42750 · Cited by 2,128
Hörlein, A., Näär, A. M., Heinzel, T., Torchia, J., Gloss, B. R., Kurokawa, R., Ryan, A. K., Kamei, Y., Söderström, M., Glass, C. K., et al. (1995) · Nature · doi:10.1038/377397a0 · Cited by 2,072
Ligand binding and co-activator assembly of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ
Nolte, R. T., Wisely, G. B., Westin, S. K., Cobb, J. E., Lambert, M. H., Kurokawa, R., Rosenfeld, M. G., Willson, T. M., Glass, C. K., & Milburn, M. V. (1998) · Nature · doi:10.1038/25931 · Cited by 1,979
A Switch Between Two-, Three-, and Four-stranded Coiled Coils in GCN4 Leucine Zipper Mutants
Harbury, P. B., Zhang, T., Kim, P. S., & Alber, T. (1993) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.8248779 · Cited by 1,490
Flagged first, then by citations
2 of the 70 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Girdard, C. & Kagan, H. B. Nonlinear effects in asymmetric synthesis and stereoselective reactions: ten years of investigation. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn Engl. 37, 2923–2959 (1998).
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 301–311 of 311
Kricheldorf, H. R. (2025) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-662-70752-4_10
Goswami, S., Madhugiri, I., Roy, S., Das, S., Gadgil, C. J., & Das, D. (2026) · Chem · doi:10.1016/j.chempr.2025.102914
Pre-evolutionary dynamics in autocatalytic RNA networks
Arsène, S. (2018) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/2b143da4zf5c9z40faza4e3z5248d9ced5b4
A statistical view on the origin of homochirality
Laurent, G. (2022) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/07dc96d8z8e9fz47d4zaeafz9379734879c7
Advances in experimental research on artificial life based on chemical systems
Xia, Y., & Zhou, J. (2026) · Chinese Science Bulletin (Chinese Version) · doi:10.1360/csb-2026-0209
Miyake, M. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-9392776/v1
Programmed molecular self-organization directed by molecular Morse code
Wieczorek, T., Castro, A. A., Rather, I. A., Boyle, A. L., Dong, J., & Davis, A. P. (2026) · Chem · doi:10.1016/j.chempr.2026.103068
Yoo, Y., & Nanda, V. (2026) · Biochemistry · doi:10.1021/acs.biochem.6c00311 · Cited by 1
Kuila, S., Nag, R., Dey, K., Samanta, A., Reddy, K. P., Ghosh, L., Ajay Haridas, C. P., Khatua, S., Mondal, T., Datta, P., et al. (2026) · Angewandte Chemie International Edition · doi:10.1002/anie.1859339
Kuila, S., Nag, R., Dey, K., Samanta, A., Reddy, K. P., Ghosh, L., Ajay Haridas, C. P., Khatua, S., Mondal, T., Datta, P., et al. (2026) · Angewandte Chemie · doi:10.1002/ange.1859339
Metadata
- Authors
- Saghatelian, A., Yokobayashi, Y., Soltani, K., & Ghadiri, M. R.
- Affiliations
- Scripps Research Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ghadiri, M. Reza
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2001-02-15
- Volume
- 409
- Issue
- 6822
- Pages
- 797-801
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2130128712
- Cited by
- 310
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 14.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- NASA Astrobiology Institute
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › RNA and protein synthesis mechanisms
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Organic Chemistry › Chemical Synthesis and Analysis
- Keywords
- homochirality, origin of life, autocatalysis, prebiotic chemistry
- MeSH terms
- Amino Acid Sequence, Catalysis, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutation, Peptide Fragments, Peptide Biosynthesis, Peptides, Protein Conformation, Stereoisomerism, Thermodynamics, Evolution, Chemical
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
