Chapter 578 Boundaries

Li Ang raised the corners of his mouth and said with a smile, "Why was my whole body in pain when I woke up, but it immediately got better after I installed the battery?

Why does the figure in rubber clothing leave a sweet liquid in the grooves of the stone wall after it opens it?

Why in room F, I was asked to use sugar cane to make battery fluid?

The reason is very simple. The so-called battery is not to provide energy for the clothes on my body.

But it gives me energy.

This thing..."

He pointed to the glass cylinder on his left arm, "It's actually just ordinary glucose."

"..."

Alice did not speak, but turned her head slightly and "looked" at the battery pointed by Li Ang.

"Glucose, molecular formula C6H12O6, according to the encyclopedia, is the most widely distributed and important monosaccharide in nature, a polyhydroxy aldehyde, the energy source and metabolic intermediate product of living cells, that is, the main energy supply substance for living things .

However, the glucose here refers to D glucose,

And the tube on my shoulder is L-glucose. "

Li Ang rubbed the bridge of his nose that was pressed by the mask and said calmly: "The position of the last hydroxyl group of D-glucose and L-glucose is different.

They have different chirality, are mirror images of each other, and are enantiomers.

Chirality is an essential attribute of nature.

Carbon atoms have four chemical bonds that can connect four functional groups.

Due to the variety of functional groups, organic matter also has asymmetry, that is, chirality.

When a certain carbon atom is used as the chiral center, there will be two spatial structures:

The two configurations have the same atomic composition, but are mirror images of each other.

Just like the human left and right hands, they cannot be overlapped by rotating.

Chiral substances are usually identified using R-S or D-L.

Molecules with different configurations only change in spatial structure, but their physiological and pharmacological activities may be very different.

For example, a drug called thalidomide,

Its R type can have a sedative effect and relieve the vomiting sensation of pregnant women, so it is used as a drug to suppress pregnancy reactions.

But the S type has a strong teratogenic effect.

If R and S are not separated, the result will be a large number of malformed fetuses.

So does this tube of L-glucose.

Normal D-glucose passes through the aerobic glycolysis pathway, the aerobic tricarboxylic acid cycle, and the biological oxidation process to generate carbon dioxide and water, releasing more energy and storing it in the form of ATP.

However, the enantiomer of D-glucose, L-glucose, cannot be phosphorylated by hexokinase, which means it cannot be used by normal mammals. "

Li Ang pointed at his nose, "In other words, I am not a normal mammal."

Alice asked softly: "How did you know it was L-glucose..."

"the reason is simple,"

Li Ang shrugged, "In fact, as a puzzle game, he gave me too many hints.

The envelope in room A smells like lemon.

Room E has a musty smell from L menthol.

Aspartyl tastes like crying,

Limonene has the same lemon fragrance as the envelope in Room A.”

He picked up several bottles tied with cloth strips at his waist and introduced them one by one, "Menthol is a type of cyclic monoterpene, a highly volatile essential oil produced by plants.

Menthol has a cool, minty aroma, but its enantiomer, D-menthol, has a musty smell.

Asparagine is sweet, but its enantiomer R-asparagine is bitter.

Limonene has two chiral subtypes, one with lemon flavor and one with orange flavor.

Before I stepped through the stone door, I always smelled lemon.

And now..."

He opened the jar containing limonene, took a deep breath, smiled at Alice, "It turned into an orange flavor.

If I guess correctly, one of the effects of this corridor is

It is the whole body of the person who enters by turning over,

Make the human body mirror symmetrical, so that all small protein and nucleic acid molecules in the body will undergo chirality inversion at the same time.

the consequences,

That is, those who enter the corridor cannot use conventional D-glucose.

And we can only use artificially synthesized L-glucose as an energy source - this is why I am limited to only three hours of activity time.

This is also the reason why alchemists say that going down a well will cause sequelae, and special clothing must be used to isolate the effects. "

He raised his arm, pointed with his thumb at the stone wall behind him, and said with a smile: "Do you still remember the door code of Room E?

mobius, mobius.

Take a long piece of white paper and paint the reverse side black.

Then flip one end over,

Connecting the two ends creates a Möbius strip.

If you take a circle along Möbius, then left becomes right, up becomes down,

Just like chiral inversion.

The well is the Möbius strip, the tunnel,

The special clothing the alchemist talked about is the one I'm wearing - but this clothing may be missing some key parts.

As a result, I actually did not block the chirality inversion effect.

It wasn't until we walked out of the stone wall that we returned to normal. "

Li Ang said in a deep voice: "In room D, the alchemist's own desk calendar says that on March 2nd, he will...

On behalf of his wife, he went to Amestoris to receive the Order of the Plant Alchemist awarded by the President.

At the same time, I also want to visit the teacher who is currently studying alkylating agents.

Alkylating agents are a class of chemically highly reactive compounds that are cytotoxic drugs that can form carbocations or other compounds with active electrophilic groups in the body.

Then it covalently binds to electron-rich groups in biological macromolecules in cells, causing it to lose activity or break DNA molecules.

Mainly used for malignant lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia,

It just corresponds to what was said in the conversation, about a certain disease that your sister Cili suffers from.

Considering that the development of medicine and chemistry in this world is not high, there is a high probability that the technology of efficient chiral catalysts has not been introduced.

Your father probably wanted to use the chirality reversal function of the well, or tunnel, to prepare chirality-specific medicine to treat his little daughter's disease.

Unfortunately, before the final result is achieved,

Tragedy happened,

Force your father to take the most extreme measures. "

Li Ang reached out and patted the stone wall of the corridor, and said calmly: "I'm afraid this corridor not only has the ability to reverse chirality, but also has the ability to reverse chirality.

It also has the ability to distort time and create loops.

It's like a Möbius strip that never reaches an end,

Or the vicious ouroboros that eats its own tail out of greed.

In this corridor, the cause is the effect, and the effect is the cause.

Time and space no longer have boundaries,

The gap between past and future is completely blurred.

There was never anyone behind this mansion, this tragedy.

In other words, the only mastermind behind the scenes,

It’s the alchemist himself, it’s me. "