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Rare-earth telluride clusters enable the construction of highly crystalline rare-earth tellurides, but a general route for preparing such clusters is lacking. Now, a facile reduction approach produces rare-earth clusters supported by (poly)tellurido ligands, including a tri-tellurido ligand with a three-center, four-electron bonding structure.
The chemical reduction of group 1 metal cations to their zero-valent species is challenging. Now, a bipyridine-stabilized borate anion joins the ranks of suitable reducing agents and also proves active in the two-electron reduction of CO2.
Boroxines, resulting from the reversible dehydration of boronic acids, have been incorporated as structural units into functional materials and molecular assemblies, but their applicability is restricted to non-aqueous environments owing to their inherent water instability. Now, a boroxine structure spontaneously formed from the 2-hydroxyphenylboronic acid dimer enables water-compatible dynamic B–O covalent bonds, expanding their future applicability.
Covalent cysteine labeling is an important tool in protein modification, however, current methodologies suffer from limited reactivities and require the prior synthesis of individual derivative reagents. Now, a covalent cysteine labeling method that converts the cysteinyl thiol into episulfonium electrophiles in situ has been developed, enabling reactions with various nucleophiles in one step.
Pomalidomide is an E3 ligase recruiter exploited by PROTACs to degrade target proteins, but its application is hampered by the off-target degradation of other vital endogenous zinc finger (ZF) proteins. Now, the off-target ZF binding of pomalidomide-based PROTACs is evaluated by a high-throughput imaging screening platform, and minimization of off-target degradation as well as enhanced potency are achieved through selective functionalization at the C5 position of the phthalimide ring.
Conformational dynamics are integral to enzyme catalysis, yet they are barely explored when designing synthetic catalysts. Now, a catenane-based organocatalyst, which dynamically switches between two conformations, speeds up the catalysis of carbodiimide hydration through spontaneous conformational adaptation for different reaction steps.
