Chiral carbon: Difference between revisions
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A chiral [[ | A chiral [[Carbon|carbon]] is a carbon [[Atom|atom]] which has 4 different groups attached. For each chrial carbon in a molecule there are 2 optical isomers. This increases exponentially with more chiral carbons, so a molecule with 2 chiral centers would have 4 optical isomers, and a molecule with 3 would have 8 optical isomers. THis can be calcultated by 2^n where n is the number of chiral carbons. In nature often only one optical isomer is produced, for example only L isomer amino acids are produced in translation. | ||
Revision as of 17:10, 30 November 2012
A chiral carbon is a carbon atom which has 4 different groups attached. For each chrial carbon in a molecule there are 2 optical isomers. This increases exponentially with more chiral carbons, so a molecule with 2 chiral centers would have 4 optical isomers, and a molecule with 3 would have 8 optical isomers. THis can be calcultated by 2^n where n is the number of chiral carbons. In nature often only one optical isomer is produced, for example only L isomer amino acids are produced in translation.