Chirality-induced avalanche magnetization of magnetite by an RNA precursor

S. Furkan Ozturk (), Deb Kumar Bhowmick, Yael Kapon, Yutao Sang, Anil Kumar, Yossi Paltiel, Ron Naaman and Dimitar D. Sasselov
Additional contact information
S. Furkan Ozturk: Harvard University
Deb Kumar Bhowmick: Weizmann Institute
Yael Kapon: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Yutao Sang: Weizmann Institute
Anil Kumar: Weizmann Institute
Yossi Paltiel: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ron Naaman: Weizmann Institute
Dimitar D. Sasselov: Harvard University

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Homochirality is a hallmark of life on Earth. To achieve and maintain homochirality within a prebiotic network, the presence of an environmental factor acting as a chiral agent and providing a persistent chiral bias to prebiotic chemistry is highly advantageous. Magnetized surfaces are prebiotically plausible chiral agents due to the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect, and they were utilized to attain homochiral ribose-aminooxazoline (RAO), an RNA precursor. However, natural magnetic minerals are typically weakly magnetized, necessitating mechanisms to enhance their magnetization for their use as effective chiral agents. Here, we report the magnetization of magnetic surfaces by crystallizing enantiopure RAO, whereby chiral molecules induce a uniform surface magnetization due to the CISS effect, which spreads across the magnetic surface akin to an avalanche. Chirality-induced avalanche magnetization enables a feedback between chiral molecules and magnetic surfaces, which can amplify a weak magnetization and allow for highly efficient spin-selective processes on magnetic minerals.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42130-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-42130-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42130-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().