Reviews & Analysis

The cell membrane acts as a border that restricts uptake of extracellular proteins. Now, peptide chemists have developed two new approaches for transporting functional and biologically relevant proteins across the cellular border by anchoring cyclic polyarginine peptides on the cell membrane.

Colloidal self-assembly requires carefully balanced particle interactions that are often incompatible with the mechanical disturbances associated with macroscopic-scale manufacturing. Now, a practical bottom-up route has enabled the production of bulk solid materials with nanoscale components.

DNA-encoded libraries are a powerful tool to identify hit compounds for drug discovery. Now, two papers have reported new advances in this technology. One paper reports a method to screen for binders inside a living cell, and the other investigates the effects of stereo- and regiochemistry on ligand discovery.

Although critically important for protein function, post-translational modifications are complex and notoriously difficult to study. Now, the effects of O-GlcNAcylation on chaperone activity and the accompanying inhibition of amyloid fibril formation have been revealed, potentially yielding new routes to combat neurodegeneration.

The continuous monitoring of proteins is a current challenge in medical diagnostics. A new electrochemical approach aiming to address this has been described. The method uses antibodies as a recognition element to achieve the real-time measurement of proteins in saliva in the mouth.

A complex containing the unstable isotope ²⁵⁴Es has been synthesized on a nanogram scale. Analysis of the fundamental bonding and spectroscopic characteristics of this einsteinium compound shows a blue shift of Es(iii) luminescence upon complexation, and the ligand serves as an antenna to sensitize the excited state.

Controlling reactions between molecules is a major fundamental goal in chemistry and doing so on the level of individual quantum states is very challenging. Now, control over the reactant state and full characterization of the product-state distribution of an ultracold bimolecular reaction has been demonstrated.

Small-molecule drug discovery and development is limited by the ability of chemists to readily synthesize and purify new compounds with suitable chemical diversity. Now, a new twist on solid-phase chemical synthesis has enabled rapid and simplified synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant small molecules.

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.

The formation of all-carbon quaternary centres is a challenging problem in organic chemistry, with far-reaching implications for functional molecule discovery. Now an inventive solution has been developed, using sulfinamides as traceless linkers for an asymmetric radical Truce–Smiles rearrangement.

The physical properties of a liquid at an interface differ from bulk solution limits, but how this affects chemical reactivity is unclear. Now, ultrafast, surface-sensitive vibrational spectroscopy has revealed that the light-induced reaction of phenol with water is four orders of magnitude faster at the water surface than in bulk.

Harnessing the unique catalytic properties of enzymes for abiotic reactions is a prized goal that has inspired a variety of approaches in enzyme design and engineering. Now, the transfer hydrogenation of ketones with silanes has been reported, catalysed by a native carbonic anhydrase.

Modelling the structure and behaviour of vesicles in cells requires liposomes with precise sizes, but producing liposomes with a narrow size distribution is challenging. An approach has now been developed to accurately size-sort liposomes in a scalable way by coating them with customized structures based on DNA nanotechnology.

The therapeutic applications of DNAzymes are limited because of their low effectiveness in vivo. Now, a promising approach for constructing DNAzymes that show high gene-silencing efficiency in mammalian cells has been developed. This approach incorporates chemical modifications into an existing DNAzyme scaffold.

The first two examples of zigzag carbon nanobelts have been reported. These compounds have been elusive targets for synthetic chemists for 35 years, but strategic structural modifications and mastering challenging multi-step syntheses finally brought success.