Emergence of molecular chirality due to chiral interactions in a biological environment

We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential and the environment is modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillato...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of biological physics 2014-09, Vol.40 (4), p.369-386
Main Authors: Tirandaz, Arash, Ghahramani, Farhad Taher, Shafiee, Afshin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biochemistry
Biological and Medical Physics
Biology
Biophysics
Complex Fluids and Microfluidics
Complex Systems
Models, Molecular
Molecular biology
Neurosciences
Optical Phenomena
Original Paper
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Soft and Granular Matter
Stereoisomerism
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Summary:We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential and the environment is modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. We carefully analyze different time-scales appearing in the resulting master equation at both weak- and strong-coupling limits. The corresponding results are accompanied by a set of coupled differential equations characterizing optical activity of the molecules. We show that, at the weak-coupling limit, chiral interactions prohibit the coherent racemization induced by decoherence effects and thus preserve the initial chiral state. At the strong-coupling limit, considering the memory effects of the environment, Markovian behavior is observed at long times.
ISSN:0092-0606
1573-0689
DOI:10.1007/s10867-014-9356-x