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RNA has multiple roles in biology, enabled by its structural diversity. Now, artificially grafted RNA motifs have been encoded in a single RNA strand to form self-assembling nanostructures with controlled geometry and function.
Although the application of force to induce chemical transformations is an active area of research, detailed understanding of these mechanochemical pathways is still lacking. Now, the mechanochemical activation of [4]-ladderane has been studied and found to exhibit unique non-equilibrium dynamic effects.
The complexity of proteins has inspired chemists to seek artificial mimetics of protein structure and function. Historically, most such work has focused on analogues of small, isolated segments; however, there is growing interest in mimicry of larger, intact tertiary folds. This Perspective surveys the emerging body of work on these agents, termed ‘proteomimetics’, discusses their construction and outlines some of the remaining challenges.
The structures of biologically active natural products have long served as inspiration in drug discovery. This Perspective outlines design principles and connectivity patterns for the de novo combination of natural product-derived fragments. The resulting ‘pseudo-natural products’ retain biological relevance yet exhibit structures and bioactivities not found in the natural products and their derivatives.
It is crucial to replace fossil fuel-based plastics with biodegradable ones that are made from renewable sources. Now, a new generation of bioplastics has been prepared through the stereoselective polymerization of diastereomeric monomers — a synthetic approach that allows tuning of the materials’ toughness, ductility and melting point.
Monoclonal antibodies have shown tremendous success in cancer treatment; however, humanization for clinical applications is expensive and not straightforward. Now, molecularly imprinted polymer nanogels have been developed that can block cell-surface proteins and disrupt tumour spheroids.
Synthetic organic chemistry is increasingly automated, data rich and intelligent. At the Automated Synthesis Forum, industry and academia showcased their recent progress towards this augmented future.
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.
Meroterpenoids are mixed terpenoid–polyketide natural products with a variety of biological activities. Now, a synthetic approach that combines biocatalytic oxidation with a range of other radical-based reactions enables the divergent synthesis of eight oxidized meroterpenoid natural products and one analogue.
