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Molecular daisy-chain structures are typically made up of two interlocked components and can exhibit muscle-like contraction and extension in one dimension. Zinc-based multicomponent systems that can operate in two and three dimensions have now been designed and synthesized.
The design and prediction of network topology is challenging, even when the components' principle interactions are strong. Now, frameworks with relatively weak 'chiral recognition' between organic building blocks have been synthesized and rationalized in silico — an important development in the reticular synthesis of molecular crystals.
Nature oxidizes biosynthetic intermediates into structurally and functionally diverse peptides. An iron-catalysed C–H oxidation mimics this approach in the lab, enabling chemists to synthesize structural analogues with ease.
Three different methods that use a single ruthenium catalyst to enable the facile formation of meta- and para-substituted alkenylarenes have now been developed. The reactions proceed through a tandem alkenylation/decarboxylation process and provide several advantages over alternative approaches.
Despite their potential as drugs, peptides are generally not cell permeable, which limits their practical applications in medicine. Now, linear peptides have been cyclized by using a heteroaromatic linker. This cyclization both improves passive membrane permeability and stabilizes a biologically relevant secondary structure.
The targeted release of bioactive molecules to diseased tissues has the potential to improve therapeutic efficacy, but not all drugs contain a free functional group that can be easily attached to an antibody. Now, a linker technology has been developed to enable the traceless release of tertiary and heteroaryl amine-containing drugs.
Charge transfer through DNA has been well studied over recent decades from both a biological and electronics perspective. It has now been shown that charge transfer can be accelerated one hundredfold by using highly energetic 'hot holes', revealing a new mechanism that could help to create useful electronic biomaterials.
Due to its high reactivity, vinylidene — the sole 'electron-precise' isomer of acetylene — is only known to exist in the gas phase. Now, a stable base-free digermanium version of a vinylidene has been isolated by the clever use of suitable substituents.
The high stability of aromatic compounds often limits the types of reaction that can be conducted on them. Now, a series of photochemically promoted addition reactions has been used to effect the oxidative dearomatization of benzene derivatives. These reactions provide a suite of versatile new building blocks for chemical synthesis.
'Click' chemistry allows for the linking together of chemical modules, however, there are currently no methods that also allow for facile 'declicking' to unlink them. Now, a method has been developed to click together amines and thiols, and then allow a chemically triggered declick reaction to release the original molecular components.
The high temperatures and pressures used in heterogeneous catalysis make it difficult to observe catalysts using conventional techniques. Now, adsorbed product molecules on the surface of a single-crystal model catalyst have been observed during catalysis using a custom-built scanning tunnelling microscope that can work in situ.
After remaining elusive for 40 years, 'Kochi's complex', a key intermediate in iron-catalysed cross-coupling, has finally been pinned down, and its structure comes as something of a surprise.
Introducing C–F bonds into organic molecules is a challenging task, particularly through C–H activation methods. Now, a uranium-based photocatalyst turns traditional selectivity rules on their heads and fluorinates unfunctionalized alkane Csp3–H bonds, even in the presence of C–H bonds that are typically more reactive.
An artificial esterase with no known natural structural analogues has been formed via the homo-heptameric self-assembly of a designed peptide. This esterase represents the first report of a functional catalytic triad rationally engineered into a de novo protein framework.
Density functional theory calculations can be carried out with different levels of accuracy, forming a hierarchy that is often represented by the rungs of a ladder. Now a new method has been developed that significantly improves the accuracy of the 'third rung' when calculating the properties of diversely bonded systems.
