Why is chirality important in organic chemistry?
1 Answer
If I had an identical twin, why can't I shake his left hand with my right hand?
Explanation:
If I did have such a twin, his left hand would be near as dammit the same as my right hand (interestingly, we WOULD have different sets of fingerprints, but this is by the by). Even given this structural similarity, we would find it exceptionally difficult to clasp right and left hands.
Of course, hands are handed, they have a chiral component, and as I recall we get the word
It is a fact that most sugars are right-handed (i.e. they have a particular chirality), and most proteins and enzymes, which catalyze sugar metabolism necessarily also have a peculiar and particular handedness. And we could even make enantiomeric glucose; this would not be metabolized by our biochemistry, because our enzymes have been selected for a particular optical substrate, i.e. right-handed sugars.
Sometimes, in drug synthesis, the consequences of poor stereocontrol can be disastrous. Look at the history of thalidomide, for which the wrong stereoisomer led to appalling consequences. And thus we could argue that stereocontrol is a vital element in drug discovery and function. Knowledge of stereochemistry and chirality are the first steps to achieving such control.
