Why is glycine achiral?

1 Answer
anor277
May 17, 2016

Because glycine contains no chiral centres.

Explanation:

Glycine, H2N−CH2C(=O)OH contains no chiral centre, and, therefore, its mirror image is superposable on the original. For this reason, glycine is not handed.

On the other hand, alanine, H3C−CH(NH2)CO2H, does contain such a chiral centre. I leave it to you to find it. I have not presented the zwitterionic forms for simplicity, but the handedness persists in this form as well.

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