Reviews & Analysis

Enzymatic approaches to synthesize oligosaccharides offer an alternative to chemical syntheses for the production of homogeneous glycans; however, enzyme-based routes typically require lengthy processes. Now, the design of a water-soluble affinity tag has enabled the automation of multistep enzymatic syntheses of mammalian oligosaccharides.

Gold — long presumed to be an inert metal — has been increasingly shaking this image over the past couple of decades, mostly through electrophilic behaviour. Now, a two-coordinate gold complex has been shown to exhibit nucleophilic reactivity, with the insertion of CO₂ into its polarized Au^δ−–Al^δ+ bond.

Finely tuned interactions in the second coordination sphere of enzymes or homogeneous catalysts can be essential for their function. Now, this concept has been applied to the surface of a catalytic material, utilizing pairs of Cu atoms for the selective electrochemical fixation of CO₂.

Most compounds form crystals so small that scientists cannot experimentally determine their atomic structures using X-ray crystallography. Microcrystal electron diffraction now provides a unique solution for this challenge.

Intersystem crossing plays a role in the mechanism of many reactive collisions between atomic species and organic molecules, and has been generally observed when the reactants are still approaching one another. Now, intersystem crossing has been observed to also occur after their initial interaction.

Strained boronate complexes have now been shown to enable an unprecedented cross-coupling reaction across a C–C σ-bond. Using this approach, highly functionalized cyclobutanes can be prepared with excellent stereocontrol from readily available reagents.