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Identifying the genes responsible for each step of a natural product biosynthesis has allowed the synthesis to be 'hijacked' to make bioactive compounds, and reveals that some suspected transporter enzymes could have other important roles in fungal defence systems.
Taking inspiration from a proposed biosynthetic sequence, a cascade of simple reactions leads to an efficient synthesis of the alkaloid natural product (+)-fastigiatine.
The efficiency of photovoltaic materials is compromised by their inability to capture all the energy absorbed when excited by high-energy photons. Such absorption creates 'hot' electrons, and now their transfer from excited lead selenide nanocrystals to an electron acceptor provides a necessary initial step towards tapping their 'lost' energy.
A series of scanning probe microscopy experiments combined with density functional theory calculations have now been used to unambiguously determine the structure of a marine natural product. Can this method become generally useful for the determination of the structure of natural products?
The oxygen-evolving centre in the protein complex photosystem II involves Ca2+ within a high-valent oxomanganese cluster, but the role of Ca2+ has yet to be clarified. Interestingly, the electron-transfer behaviour of a non-haem oxoiron(IV) complex has now been found to be significantly altered by Lewis acid metal-ion binding to the oxo atom.
A highly basic gold catalyst has been shown to mediate the reaction of aromatic C–H bonds with carbon dioxide. The reaction provides a potential method of fixing atmospheric carbon dioxide and producing valuable chemical products.
The aggregation of proteins into fibrils plays a crucial role in neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Further insight into fibril formation has now been gained that reveals the effect of hydrophobic surfaces, including air.
Electron transfer between ions and water is of fundamental interest for many processes in biology and chemistry. Now, using core-electron excitation of hydrated iron cations, ultrafast electron transfer to the coordinating water molecules has been detected.
Proteins are most at home in water, although it has been known for some time that they can remain functional in non-aqueous environments. Researchers have now shown that in solvent-free melts, the oxygen-binding protein myoglobin adopts a near-native structure and retains its biological activity.
Pattern mapping is a synthetic tactic that is complementary to standard retrosynthetic analysis. When combined with the concept of traceless stereochemical guidance, it leads to an efficient synthesis of the steroidal natural product (±)-aplykurodinone-1.
A versatile intermediate has been shown to provide access to a wide variety of compounds in the cortistatin family. This approach offers the most efficient total synthesis of the cortistatins reported so far.
The concept of encoding information into a synthetic polymer through its monomer sequence promises very-high-density storage, but decoding such data is a significant challenge. Now, it has been shown that small molecular tweezers can recognize different triplet sequences in oligoimides, offering a glimpse of how to read out information from polymer codes.
The behaviour of molecules in confined environments is typically studied in synthetic systems by trapping them inside molecular cages or porous materials. Now, the properties of photosensitive metal–diimine complexes incorporated in the scaffold of a metal–organic framework, rather than in its cavities, have been investigated.
Interlocking molecules in solution usually requires recognition motifs that direct the assembly of the building blocks. Triply interlocked catenanes have now been constructed just relying on the interpenetration of structures typical of the solid state and slow reversible covalent bond formation.
A photo-reversible metal–semiconductor phase transition can be induced in a nanocrystalline transition-metal oxide at room temperature by short-wavelength light irradiation, holding promise for the development of new optical storage media.
The plant-derived sesquiterpene englerin A is a potent inhibitor of several renal cancer cell lines. Two recent total syntheses have utilized cationic gold(I)-complexes to coax readily available open-chain precursors into englerin's challenging oxotricyclic core with enzyme-like precision.
