BIO In the literature: partially resolved

Prebiotic transfer of chiral bias from sugars to amino acids

In plain words

Life pairs right-handed sugars with left-handed amino acids, and RNA made of right-handed sugars is known to prefer attaching left-handed amino acids. Whether this preference was strong enough under early-Earth conditions to pass one chiral bias on to the other molecule family is open.

Precise statement

D-RNA is known to favor L-amino acids in aminoacylation, and mirror-image RNA reverses the preference (Tamura and Schimmel, 2004). Find a prebiotically plausible network in which enantioenriched sugars or RNA produce free or peptide-bound L-amino acids with ee transfer factor $\mathrm{ee}_{\mathrm{out}}/\mathrm{ee}_{\mathrm{in}} \ge 1$, under early-Earth conditions without modern enzymes, and measure it.

What would settle it

An experiment showing that enantioenriched sugar or RNA precursors produce amino acids of the biological handedness with a measured ee transfer factor, under prebiotic conditions.

Status in the literature

Chiral-selective RNA aminoacylation was shown in 2004 (Science, doi 10.1126/science.1099141); amplifying transfer under prebiotic conditions has not been demonstrated, to this survey's knowledge.