In this issue - pv

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-v

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Chemical biology makes an impact - p517

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-517

Nature Chemical Biology's impact factor of 12.409 reflects the growing visibility and impact of research at the interface of chemistry and biology.

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Small molecules not direct activators of caspases - p519

Jean-Bernard Denault, Marcin Drag, Guy S Salvesen, Juliano Alves, Analeah B Heidt, Quinn Deveraux & Jennifer L Harris

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-519

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Reply to 'Small molecules not direct activators of caspases' - p520

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-520

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Synthetic biology: lessons from the history of synthetic organic chemistry - pp521 - 525

Brian J Yeh & Wendell A Lim

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-521

The mid-nineteenth century saw the development of a radical new direction in chemistry: instead of simply analyzing existing molecules, chemists began to synthesize them—including molecules that did not exist in nature. The combination of this new synthetic approach with more traditional analytical approaches revolutionized chemistry, leading to a deep understanding of the fundamental principles of chemical structure and reactivity and to the emergence of the modern pharmaceutical and chemical industries. The history of synthetic chemistry offers a possible roadmap for the development and impact of synthetic biology, a nascent field in which the goal is to build novel biological systems.

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Berkeley Center for Synthetic Biology - p527

Mirella Bucci

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-527

The world's first synthetic biology department at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is using a bottom-up approach to form a foundation of design rules and models to understand cellular function.

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Chemical biology meets networks - pp528 - 529

Jennifer J Kohler reviews Chemical Biology: From Small Molecules to Systems Biology and Drug Design by Stuart Schreiber, Tarun Kapoor & Günther Wess

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-528

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Natural product biosynthesis moves in vitro - pp531 - 532

Robert A Fecik

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-531

Heterologous production of natural products in non-native bacteria can be used to increase yields of certain bioactive compounds; however, producing small molecules inside bacteria has numerous limitations. Two reports of the in vitro reconstruction of entire biosynthetic pathways highlight the advantages and challenges of this approach for pathway engineering.

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See also: Brief Communication by Cheng et al. | Article by Balibar et al.

Targeting the spliceosome - pp533 - 535

Brian Rymond

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-533

The U2 snRNP particle is an essential component of the eukaryotic pre-mRNA splicing apparatus, the spliceosome. Natural and semisynthetic inhibitors that bind the SF3b subunit of the U2 snRNP block splicing and prompt nuclear export of intron-bearing precursors, defining a new mode of action in anticancer drugs.

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See also: Letter by Kotake et al. | Article by Kaida et al.

The end defines the means in bacterial mRNA decay - pp535 - 536

Daniel R Schoenberg

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-535

Bacterial mRNAs begin with a triphosphate on the first transcribed nucleotide, but RNase E, the endonuclease long thought to initiate mRNA decay in Escherichia coli, only works well on RNA with a 5'-monophosphate. Conversion of the 5'-triphosphate to a monophosphate now appears to be the first committed step in mRNA decay in E. coli.

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Cleaving C-Hg bonds: two thiolates are better than one - pp537 - 538

Susan M Miller

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-537

Organomercurial lyase (MerB) catalyzes the difficult cleavage of C-Hg bonds to hydrocarbon and mercuric dithiol products. Model compounds providing two or three thiolate ligands activate organomercurials toward acidic cleavage under mild conditions, which supports a mechanism in which MerB enzymes use two conserved active-site cysteines to activate the substrate.

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Research Highlights - p539

doi:10.1038/nchembio0907-539

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