Almost all amino acids are chiral. The body only uses L amino acids, and proteins are chains of amino acids that in the most simple sense fold up into a single structure by themselves when they are formed. Do you think a cell could live with all D (the opposite of L) amino acids, explain your logic. When I ask 'live', I mean could the organism/cell be composed completely of D amino acids and live (This is just a thought question, don't bother trying to find the answer anywhere ...)

Question

Howard Downs

Chemistry

14 June, 02:47

Almost all amino acids are chiral. The body only uses L amino acids, and proteins are chains of amino acids that in the most simple sense fold up into a single structure by themselves when they are formed. Do you think a cell could live with all D (the opposite of L) amino acids, explain your logic. When I ask 'live', I mean could the organism/cell be composed completely of D amino acids and live (This is just a thought question, don't bother trying to find the answer anywhere ...)

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Answers (1)

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Beatrice · Answer 1

An organism that is completely composed D amino acids cannot survive.

Explanation:

Most of amino acids in all organism are present in L conformation. As result in all organism the enzymes are specific for L amino acids but not for D amino acids.

Bacterial cell wall contain some D amino acids such as D glutamate, D alanine but not entirely composed of D amino acids.