some seem to react much more differently than others, and some much more effectively. w h y
In: Chemistry
They have different properties because they interact differently with biological chiral molecules such as amino acids.
Enantiomers are described as left and right handed so think of them as left and right hands. If you try and use your right hand with those lefty scissors then it still kinda works but not quite as efficiently. So if the scissors are an enzyme and your hands are a chiral molicules that activates them because of the specific shape of the scissors (enzyme) the fact that the hands (activator ) are mirror images of eachother makes one of them unable to interact as efficiently.
Maybe you have a receptor that is shaped like a right glove. It won’t recognize your left hand because your left hand doesn’t fit in a right glove. So now the signal that the receptor is supposed to send doesn’t get into the cell because the mirror image of the molicule doesn’t not interact.
A specific actual example is all of our amino acids in proteins. They are all in the L configuration. Amino acid chains can for alpha helicies as a secondary structure. This is because of the shape of the backbone of the amino acids and the fact that they are all L configuration. If you also had D configuration amino acids then you would not be able to form alpha helicies with a mix of D and L. It would be like trying to build a spiral staircase with some stairs that went right and some that went left.
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