Achiral Calcium‐Oxalate Crystals with Chiral Morphology from the Leaves of Some Solanacea Plants

Abstract

AbstractThe leaves of some plants, particularly among the Solanacea, contain crystals of calcium oxalate with a peculiar chiral pseudo‐tetrahedral morphology, even though the calcium oxalate crystal structure is centrosymmetric, hence achiral. We studied the morphology of these crystals extracted from the leaves of three Solanacea plants: the potato, the hot pepper, and a species of wild Solanum. The crystal morphology was the same in all three species. Based on the examination of more than 100 crystals from each plant, we showed that the crystal morphology is chiral with invariant chirality. We suggest that morphological chirality is induced by macromolecules during nucleation from a specific, genetically encoded crystal plane, and is further established during subsequent controlled crystal growth. This is one of few examples where it is possible to deduce a molecular mechanism for biologically induced breaking of morphological symmetry in organisms. A very high level of recognition is required by the macromolecules to allow them to distinguish between symmetry‐related crystal planes. It is also surprising that this finely controlled mechanism of crystal formation, including the chiral morphology, has been conserved during evolution.