Review Articles

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  • Nanopore label-free sequencing of DNA and RNA at the single-molecule level offers rapid readout, high accuracy, low cost and portability. This Review surveys technologies underpinning commercial and academic nanopore sequencing, and examines how underlying biochemical advances can fuel future developments in nanopore-based protein sequencing.

    • Adam Dorey
    • Stefan Howorka
    Review Article
  • The ability to detect and quantify a given analyte at the molecular level is a long-lasting goal for analytical and bioanalytical chemistry. This Review highlights how single-molecule junctions (SMJs) have been used for analytical purposes, from the detection of isomers and reaction intermediates to the detection of proteins and nucleic acids. Different SMJ approaches are discussed, along with their advantages and limitations over bulk analytical techniques.

    • Essam M. Dief
    • Paul J. Low
    • Nadim Darwish
    Review Article
  • The light-driven conversion of abundant resources such as CO2 and H2O into chemical fuels for energy storage is crucial to end our dependence on fossil fuels. This Review highlights how molecular catalysts and photosensitizers can be grafted onto metal–organic frameworks to combine the advantages of both classes of compounds. Different synthetic strategies are discussed, along with their advantages and limitations.

    • P. M. Stanley
    • J. Haimerl
    • J. Warnan
    Review Article
  • Chemically fuelled synthetic molecular machines are capable of driving and sustaining non-equilibrium motion, analogous to the biomachinery that underpins life. This Review discusses the chemical and physical features of biological and synthetic chemical fuels and highlights potential challenges and opportunities for the development of synthetic chemically fuelled machinery.

    • Stefan Borsley
    • David A. Leigh
    • Benjamin M. W. Roberts
    Review Article
  • The emerging field of dissipative DNA nanotechnology aims at developing synthetic devices and nanomaterials with life-like properties such as directional motion, transport, communication or adaptation. This Review surveys how dissipative DNA systems combine the programmability of nucleic-acid reactions with the consumption of energy stored in chemical fuel molecules to perform work and cyclical tasks.

    • Erica Del Grosso
    • Elisa Franco
    • Francesco Ricci
    Review Article
  • Enzymes, either purified or as whole-cell biocatalysts, can be concatenated into catalytic cascades and used to produce pharmaceutically relevant molecules. This Review discusses the advantages and requirements of multistep enzyme cascades and also highlights how they can be harnessed to achieve highly sustainable and cost-efficient syntheses.

    • Ana I. Benítez-Mateos
    • David Roura Padrosa
    • Francesca Paradisi
    Review Article
  • Viruses use the cellular machinery of their host organism to reproduce. This Review discusses how [FeS] cluster-containing proteins activate, support and modulate the innate immune response to restrict viral infections as well as highlighting how some of these proteins simultaneously support the replication of viruses.

    • Kourosh Honarmand Ebrahimi
    • Simone Ciofi-Baffoni
    • Fraser A. Armstrong
    Review Article
  • Aromatic hydrocarbon belts consisting of fully fused benzenoid rings have fascinated scientists for over half a century. This Review revisits the protracted historical background of these compounds and features some recent breakthroughs in their rational design and synthesis, including the challenges faced in the precise synthesis of carbon-rich materials such as single-walled carbon nanotubes.

    • Qing-Hui Guo
    • Yunyan Qiu
    • J. Fraser Stoddart
    Review Article
  • Metabolic labelling with unnatural sugars can be used to selectively label tumours with chemical tags. These tags then enable the targeted delivery of molecular cargo including diagnostic and therapeutic agents. This Review Article discusses progress in the design and delivery of unnatural sugars for metabolic labelling of tumour cells and the subsequent development of tumour-targeted chemistry.

    • Hua Wang
    • David J. Mooney
    Review Article
  • The past decade has seen unprecedented growth in the development of chemical methods that proceed by mechanisms involving radical intermediates, but controlling absolute stereochemistry has been a longstanding challenge in this area. This Review Article examines how attractive non-covalent interactions between a chiral catalyst and the substrate can exert enantiocontrol in radical reactions.

    • Rupert S. J. Proctor
    • Avene C. Colgan
    • Robert J. Phipps
    Review Article
  • Cyclic polymers have a ring-like architecture and one of the most important consequences of this topology is the absence of any chain ends, which typically have a substantial impact on the physical properties of macromolecules. This Review Article discusses advances in the synthesis, purification and characterization of cyclic polymers and the potential applications they may prove useful for.

    • Farihah M. Haque
    • Scott M. Grayson
    Review Article
  • Growing polymers directly on surfaces has emerged as a powerful tool because it can provide a route to otherwise inaccessible structures such as defect-free linear chains, graphene nanoribbons and two-dimensional networks. This Review Article describes general principles and key aspects of this method from the perspectives of surface science and polymer chemistry.

    • Leonhard Grill
    • Stefan Hecht
    Review Article
  • Despite the regular occurrence of high-profile accidents leading to serious injuries or deaths among lab personnel, the state of academic lab safety research has languished. Existing studies in this area are summarized and critiqued in this Review and suggestions are made for future research directions.

    • A. Dana Ménard
    • John F. Trant
    Review Article
  • ortho-Aminomethylphenylboronic acids are routinely used in sensors for carbohydrates, but the function of the o-aminomethyl group in enhancing binding affinity and modulating the emission of appended fluorophores has been the matter of some debate. This Review presents a unified picture of the structural features, mechanisms of sugar complexation and photophysics of these kinds of sensors.

    • Xiaolong Sun
    • Brette M. Chapin
    • Eric V. Anslyn
    Review Article
  • Biochemical and cellular assays are often plagued by false positive readouts elicited by nuisance compounds. A significant proportion of those compounds are aggregators. This Review discusses the basis for colloidal aggregation, experimental methods for detecting aggregates and analyses recent progress in computer-based systems for detecting colloidal aggregation with particular emphasis on machine learning [In the online version of this Review originally published, the graphical abstract image was incorrectly credited to ‘Reven T.C. Wurman / Alamy Stock Photo’ this has now been corrected].

    • Daniel Reker
    • Gonçalo J. L. Bernardes
    • Tiago Rodrigues
    Review Article
  • Phytochemicals exhibit great pharmaceutical importance despite their low abundance in nature. The microbial biosynthesis of complex phytochemicals offers one route to increase their availability and production. This Review discusses recent strategies to reconstruct plant biosynthetic pathways that have not been fully elucidated; enhance plant enzyme activity; and enhance overall reaction efficiency of multi-enzyme pathways.

    • Sijin Li
    • Yanran Li
    • Christina D. Smolke
    Review Article
  • Given its ubiquity, the importance of understanding the properties of water cannot be understated. Now, stemming from discussions at a National Science Foundation-supported workshop, this Review Article highlights where there is latent chemical space for potential collaborations between the physical and supramolecular communities, both of which are interested in how molecules interact with each other in water.

    • Paul S. Cremer
    • Amar H. Flood
    • David L. Mobley
    Review Article
  • The emergence of synthetic fluorescent nucleobases that can be incorporated into DNA and RNA in place of their natural counterparts has enabled new tools and technologies with applications in chemistry, biology and biomedicine. This Review discusses chemical insights into canonical and non-canonical nucleobase designs, relating structure to properties.

    • Wang Xu
    • Ke Min Chan
    • Eric T. Kool
    Review Article
  • Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in targeted covalent inhibition of disease-associated proteins. Among the electrophiles used to interact with nucleophilic residues in protein structures, boron is unique for its chameleonic ability to display a range of coordination modes upon interaction with protein targets.

    • Diego B. Diaz
    • Andrei K. Yudin
    Review Article