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  • Rare-earth telluride clusters enable the construction of highly crystalline rare-earth tellurides, but a general route for preparing such clusters is lacking. Now, a facile reduction approach produces rare-earth clusters supported by (poly)tellurido ligands, including a tri-tellurido ligand with a three-center, four-electron bonding structure.

    • Chenyu Wang
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Aldo-keto reductase 1C3 (AKR1C3) is known to be a cancer biomarker correlated to androgen synthesis, and causes drug resistance by direct action on chemotherapeutics and by stabilizing AR splice variant 7 (ARv7). While selective inhibitors against AKR1C3 are developed, the ARv7 is thought to be undruggable. Here, the authors develop an AKR1C3-ARv7 dual PROTAC degrader based on a selective inhibitor against AKR1C3, showing the potential for degradation of AKR1C3 and ARv7 simultaneously.

    • Angelica V. Carmona
    • Shirisha Jonnalagadda
    • Paul C. Trippier
    ArticleOpen Access
  • The fluorine isotope 18F is a PET nuclide used for imaging studies, but the incorporation of [18F]HF into 2,2-difluorovinyl groups to generate radiotracers and labeling reagents has only been achieved in low yields. Here, using a combination of Et3SiH and TEMPO in the absence of oxidizing agents is shown to afford a higher yield, better product quality, and controllable selectivity between the formation of a S–F or C–F bond.

    • Mudasir Maqbool
    • Jimmy Erik Jakobsson
    • Patrick Johannes Riss
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Amides are important intermediates in organic chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry, but their low reactivity requires catalysts and/or harsh reaction conditions to esterify them. Here, the authors report a versatile and mild dimethyl sulfate-mediated reaction to activate and esterify C—N bonds, achieving up to 95% amide bond cleavage.

    • Hongjian Qin
    • Zijian Han
    • Haji A. Aisa
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Organosodium compounds are appealing sustainable alternatives to precious transition metal compounds, yet they have rarely been used in homogeneous catalysis. Here, the authors introduce a dihydropyridylsodium compound, Na1,2-tBu-DH(DMAP), and its monomeric variant [Na-1,2-tBuDH(DMAP)]·Me6TREN, and demonstrate their effectiveness in transfer hydrogenation catalysis of a representative alkene, 1,1-diphenylethylene, using 1,4-cyclohexadiene as a hydrogen source.

    • Peter A. Macdonald
    • Alan R. Kennedy
    • Robert E. Mulvey
    ArticleOpen Access
  • The chemical reduction of group 1 metal cations to their zero-valent species is challenging. Now, a bipyridine-stabilized borate anion joins the ranks of suitable reducing agents and also proves active in the two-electron reduction of CO2.

    • Johannes Kreutzer
    Research HighlightOpen Access
  • Peptide condensates are known to regulate compartmentalized enzymatic reactions, however, the influence of condensate chemical composition on enzymatic reactions is still poorly understood. Here, the authors study β-galactosidase as a simple enzymatic model and reveal that product formation is enhanced in heterotypic peptide-RNA condensates, but the reaction is restricted in homotypic peptide condensates.

    • Rif Harris
    • Shirel Veretnik
    • Ayala Lampel
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Isofagomine (IFG) and its analogs have promising glycosidase inhibitory activities, however, a flexible synthetic strategy toward C5a-functionalized IFGs remains to be achieved. Here, the authors show a practical synthesis of C5a-S and R-aminomethyl IFG derivatives via diastereoselective addition of cyanide to cyclic nitrone, and the synthesized derivatives are subsequently assessed for their efficacy as GCase stabilizers.

    • Huang-Yi Li
    • Wei-An Chen
    • Wei-Chieh Cheng
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Stereoselective production of trans-4-substituted cyclohexane-1-amines—including a key intermediate in the synthesis of antipsychotic drug cariprazine—remains challenging. Here, the authors develop a process catalyzed by a single transaminase to produce trans-4-substituted cyclohexane-1-amines from the corresponding cis/trans-diastereomeric mixtures via a cis-deamination approach in continuous-flow, to achieve a dynamic cis-to-trans isomerization.

    • Emese Farkas
    • Péter Sátorhelyi
    • János Éles
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Combinatorial biosynthesis of natural products is a method to synthesize structurally diverse molecules with defined modifications. Here, the authors review the various approaches used for combinatorial biosynthesis of fungal natural products by engineering biosynthetic enzymes and pathways to generate novel molecules.

    • Elizabeth Skellam
    • Sanjeevan Rajendran
    • Lei Li
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) is one of the most important fluorescence mechanisms, with multi-step FRET systems enabling sequential energy transfer as seen in natural photosynthetic systems. Here, the authors review recent progress in exploiting discrete supramolecular assemblies to achieve multi-step FRET between donors and multiple acceptors.

    • Dengli Chen
    • Tangxin Xiao
    • Leyong Wang
    PerspectiveOpen Access
  • Asparaginyl ligases have been utilized as valuable tools for protein engineering, such as through site-specific bioconjugation or surface modification, however, their application is limited due to time-consuming preparation processes and unstable activities. Here, the authors develop a truncated protein ligase OaAEP1-C247A-aa55-351 from an OaAEP1-C247A mutant, which simplifies the preparation steps, tolerates a wider pH range, and enhances the catalytic activities by using efficient recognition and nucleophile motifs.

    • Jiabao Tang
    • Mengling Hao
    • Ningshao Xia
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Transfer learning is known to enhance molecular property prediction in limited data sets, however, negative transfer due to insufficient relatedness between source and target tasks continues to be a major challenge. Here, the authors develop a principal gradient-based measurement to evaluate the quantitative transferability from the source property to the target property before applying transfer learning, significantly improving the transfer learning performance.

    • Shaolun Yao
    • Jie Song
    • Zunlei Feng
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Understanding the stability and activity of freeze-dried bio-macromolecules at low degrees of hydration is crucial for pharmaceutical and food industries, however, the building of in silico models for dynamical studies at a molecular level needs careful consideration. Here, the authors propose a modelling protocol that mimics experimental protein lyophilization, and proteins in weakly hydrated amorphous states, and validate it against experimental neutron scattering data.

    • Elisa Bassotti
    • Sara Gabrielli
    • Mark Telling
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Identifying molecular properties of compounds that best correlate with outer membrane permeation and growth inhibition could guide the discovery of new antibiotics. Here, the authors evaluate 174 molecular descriptors in 1260 antimicrobial compounds and study their correlations with antibacterial activity in Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa to derive a statistical protocol to identify mechanistic predictors of outer membrane permeation.

    • Pedro D. Manrique
    • Inga V. Leus
    • S. Gnanakaran
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Water at the surface of proteins is known to be critically important in maintaining their conformation and function, but the dynamics of the backbone hydration of peptides remains somewhat elusive. Here, the authors study the hydrogen-bonding structural dynamics of N-ethylpropionamide, a β-peptide model, in heavy water using nonlinear infrared spectroscopy and MD simulations.

    • Juan Zhao
    • Pengyun Yu
    • Jianping Wang
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Mass spectrometry-based quantitative chemoproteomics is widely used for the identification of protein targets as well as modified residues, however, sample preparation and data analysis remain tedious. Here, the authors develop silane-based cleavable linkers functionalized tandem mass tags as click-compatible isobaric tags, introducing the isobaric label earlier in sample preparation, achieving decreased sample preparation time, with high coverage and high-accuracy quantification.

    • Nikolas R. Burton
    • Keriann M. Backus
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Understanding the stability of the eye lens protein human gamma-D crystallin (HGD) is essential to developing tools to prevent the formation of cataracts, however, structural investigations of the response of HGD to ultraviolet radiation are lacking. Here, the authors use continuous illumination serial crystallography to directly probe the mechanism of R36S HGD in response to ultraviolet radiation damage.

    • Jake A. Hill
    • Yvonne Nyathi
    • Briony A. Yorke
    ArticleOpen Access
  • Dynamic microscale droplets produced by liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) have emerged as appealing biomaterials, but their instability hinders their assembly into high-order structures with collective behaviors. Here, the authors review current strategies for stabilizing droplets, as well as recent developments in the applications of such LLPS droplets, and provide insights into how stabilized droplets can self-assemble into higher-order structures that display coordinated functions.

    • Mehwish Naz
    • Lin Zhang
    • Jianwei Li
    Review ArticleOpen Access
  • Mass transport at surfaces determines the kinetics of processes such as heterogeneous catalysis and thin-film growth, but our fundamental understanding of the contributions of molecular degrees of freedom to the process remains incomplete. Here, the authors use neutron spectroscopy together with theoretical methods to explain the “rolling” motion of triphenylphosphine adsorbed on exfoliated graphite.

    • Anton Tamtögl
    • Marco Sacchi
    • Peter Fouquet
    ArticleOpen Access