Enantiomers

Enantiomers are compounds which are non superimposable mirror images of eachother and are therefore a special type ofisomerism. They can either be a D-sugar or an L-sugar depending on the direction they reflect plane polarised light. In a D-sugar the -OH group is on the right of the chiral carbon whereas the L-isomer has an -OH group placed on the left on the chiral carbon.

• Harvey.R et al, Lippincotts illustrated reviews Biochemistry 5th edition, Wolters Kluwer, Philadelphia (2011)