Scientists have proposed what they believe is the first method for detecting ‘mirror life’ – a hypothetical form of life made from molecular building blocks that are the mirror image of those found naturally on Earth.
Researchers at the University of Strathclyde and our Department of Chemistry have outlined a new approach that could potentially identify mirror organisms using molecules which emit left and right-handed light.
This provides a possible future surveillance tool should the ability to create such organisms ever emerge.
Mirror life is considered a low-likelihood but potentially high-severity biosecurity threat.
There are international concerns that artificially created mirror organisms could interact with the natural world in unpredictable ways and potentially evade some of the biological defences which protect humans, animals and plants.
Scientists have called for restrictions on research aimed at creating the self-replicating mirror organisms.
The potential risks have also been considered by governments and international organisations.
Even though left- and right-handed molecules have exactly the same atoms in the same order, they interact differently with living bodies.
While one version of a medicine might cure an illness, the mirror-image version may do nothing or cause harm.
The researchers, who stress that mirror life does not currently exist and their proposed method is intended as a contingency measure, use an approach involving circularly polarised luminescence (CPL).
A property of light, it can reveal information about the ‘handedness’, or chirality, of molecules and biological structures.
Circularly polarised light is already familiar in everyday applications – for example, it is used to create the stereoscopic effect in 3D cinema glasses.
The researchers propose using fluorescent probes which bind to structures within cells and produce distinctive CPL signals.
These signals could provide a molecular fingerprint indicating whether a biological sample has the conventional chirality found in terrestrial life or its mirror image/alternative.
To minimise the possibility of false results, the paper proposes using a panel of different probes targeting several biological structures rather than relying on a single measurement.
The proposed approach could be tested and developed using conventional biological samples without creating mirror organisms.
The team suggest that the mirror life detection technique could eventually be used with a wide range of devices.
Existing CPL detection technologies such as microscopes, cameras, and biological cell plate readers have already been demonstrated at laboratory scale by Professor Robert Pal of our Department of Chemistry, although a complete mirror-life detection assay has not yet been experimentally demonstrated.
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