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Dissipative vibrational model for chiral recognition in olfaction

Tirandaz, A ; Sharif University of Technology | 2015

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.92.032724
  3. Publisher: American Physical Society , 2015
  4. Abstract:
  5. We examine the olfactory discrimination of left- and right-handed enantiomers of chiral odorants based on the odorant-mediated electron transport from a donor to an acceptor of the olfactory receptors embodied in a biological environment. The chiral odorant is effectively described by an asymmetric double-well potential whose minima are associated to the left- and right-handed enantiomers. The introduced asymmetry is considered an overall measure of chiral interactions. The biological environment is conveniently modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. The resulting spin-boson model is adapted by a polaron transformation to derive the corresponding Born-Markov master equation with which we obtain the elastic and inelastic electron tunneling rates. We show that the inelastic tunneling through left- and right-handed enantiomers occurs with different rates. The discrimination mechanism depends on the ratio of tunneling frequency to localization frequency
  6. Keywords:
  7. Electron transport properties ; Electron tunneling ; Odors ; Biological environments ; Double-well potential ; Electron transport ; Harmonic oscillators ; Inelastic electron tunneling ; Inelastic tunneling ; Olfactory receptors ; Tunneling frequency ; Enantiomers
  8. Source: Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics ; Volume 92, Issue 3 , 2015 ; 15393755 (ISSN)
  9. URL: http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.92.032724