RSC Chemical Biology Blog

Protein–protein interfaces in molecular glue-induced ternary complexes: classification, characterization, and prediction

We’re pleased to announce that a new themed collection from RSC Chemical Biology has now been published online.

READ THE COLLECTION

This themed collection, guest edited by Michelle Arkin (University of California San Francisco, USA), Luc Brunsveld (TU Eindhoven, Netherlands), and Eric Fischer (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, USA), encompasses the wide scope of molecular glues. Topics include protein degradation glues, protein binders and stabilizers, bi-functional molecules for protein degradation and beyond with a particular interest on molecular recognition.

The articles in this collection are listed below. All articles in RSC Chemical Biology are open access and free to read.

REVIEWS

Huan Rui, Kate S. Ashton, Jaeki Min, Connie Wang and Patrick Ryan Potts

RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 192–215, DOI: 10.1039/D2CB00207H

Bringing enzymes to the proximity party

Gabrielle S. Tender and Carolyn R. Bertozzi

RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 986–1002, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB00084B

PAPERS

Accessing three-branched high-affinity cereblon ligands for molecular glue and protein degrader design

Robert Kuchta, Christopher Heim, Alexander Herrmann, Samuel Maiwald, Yuen Lam Dora Ng, Izidor Sosič, Tim Keuler, Jan Krönke, Michael Gütschow, Marcus D. Hartmann and Christian Steinebach

RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 229–234, DOI: 10.1039/D2CB00223J

Straightforward model construction and analysis of multicomponent biomolecular systems in equilibrium

Nick H. J. Geertjens, Pim J. de Vink, Tim Wezeman, Albert J. Markvoort and Luc Brunsveld

RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 252–260, DOI: 10.1039/D2CB00211F

A model-informed method to retrieve intrinsic from apparent cooperativity and project cellular target occupancy for ternary complex-forming compounds

Richard R. Stein, Marianne Fouché, Jeffrey D. Kearns and Hans-Joerg Roth

RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 512–523, DOI: 10.1039/D2CB00216G

Bind&Bite: covalently stabilized heterodimeric coiled-coil peptides for the site-selective, cysteine-free chemical modification of proteins

Jannis Beutel, Pierre Tannig, Riccardo Di Vincenzo, Thomas Schumacher, Klaus Überla and Jutta Eichler

RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 794–803, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB00122A

We hope you enjoy this new themed collection from RSC Chemical Biology.

Comments Off on New themed collection on ‘Molecular Glues’

Collaboration with the 1st FERROPTOSIS FRANCE SYMPOSIUM on January 26, 2024

15 Jan 2024

By Shwetha Krishna, Assistant Editor.

RSC Chemical Biology is pleased to partner with the 1st FERROPTOSIS FRANCE SYMPOSIUM on January 26, 2024. The symposium features renowned speakers, presenting the latest developments and future trends in the field of ferroptosis.

For full details, visit https://www.ferroptosisfrance.fr/. Registrations extended until 19/01/1024. Hurry!

Comments Off on Collaboration with the 1st FERROPTOSIS FRANCE SYMPOSIUM on January 26, 2024

New themed collection on ‘Molecular and nanotheranostics’

15 Jan 2024

By Alexander Whiteside.

A slide summarising the information in this blog post

We’re pleased to announce that a new themed collection from RSC Chemical Biology and RSC Medicinal Chemistry has now been published online.

Read the collection

This themed collection, Guest Edited by Professor Thimmaiah Govindaraju (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India), covers advancements in molecular and nanotheranostics with particular emphasis on the design of theranostic tools and their selective interaction with biomolecular targets to image and ameliorate pathological conditions. The collection is anticipated to catalyze the development of precision theranostics as advanced and personalizable tools in chemical biology and modern medicine.

The articles in the collection are listed below. Articles in RSC Chemical Biology are open access and free to read.

Editorial

Introduction to the themed collection on ‘Molecular and nanotheranostics’
Thimmaiah Govindaraju
RSC. Chem. Biol., 2024, 5, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB90050A

Reviews

Small molecules and conjugates as theranostic agents
Sumon Pratihar, Krithi K. Bhagavath and Thimmaiah Govindaraju
RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 826–849, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB00073G

Recent progress of small-molecule-based theranostic agents in Alzheimer’s disease
Furong Gao, Jiefang Chen, Yuancun Zhou, Letong Cheng, Ming Hu and Xiaohui Wang
RSC. Med. Chem., 2023, 14, 2231–2245, DOI: 10.1039/D3MD00330B

Papers and Communications

Single-chain multicolor-reporter templates for subcellular localization of molecular events in mammalian cells
Sung-Bae Kim, Ramasamy Paulmurugan, Nobuo Kitada and Sojiro A. Maki
RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 1043–1049, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB00077J

Fluorescent naphthalimide boronates as theranostics: structural investigations, confocal fluorescence and multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy in living cells
Megan J. Green, Haobo Ge, Stephen E. Flower, Charareh Pourzand, Stanley W. Botchway, Hui-Chen Wang, Navaratnarajah Kuganathan, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn, Meng Li, Suying Xu, Tony D. James and Sofia I. Pascu
RSC. Chem. Biol., 2023, 4, 1082–1095, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB00112A

Cationic Dextrin Nanoparticles for Effective Intracellular Delivery of Cytochrome C in Cancer Therapy
Ankita Sarkar, Sanchita Sarkhel, Deepali Bisht and Amit Jaiswal
RSC. Chem. Biol., 2024, 5, DOI: 10.1039/D3CB00090G

We hope you enjoy this new themed collection from RSC Chemical Biology and RSC Medicinal Chemistry.

Comments Off on New themed collection on ‘Molecular and nanotheranostics’

Introducing Sander van Kasteren: Bridging Chemistry and Immunology as Associate Editor

11 Jan 2024

Welcome to the team Sander!

Sander van Kasteren's picture

We’re excited to introduce Sander van Kasteren as our new Associate Editor. His ground-breaking work in chemistry and immunology brings a wealth of expertise and innovation to our editorial team.

Bridging Chemistry and Immunology

Sander’s research connects the dots between chemistry and immunology, focusing on understanding early immune reactions. His innovative methods for studying antigen presentation and T-cell activation are making waves in the scientific community.

Academic Journey

Starting as an organic chemistry student in Edinburgh, Sander’s journey led him to Oxford and the lab of Prof Benjamin G. Davis. There, he contributed to MRI and histological probes for detecting early brain inflammation. His expertise grew under Prof Colin Watts in Dundee, where he worked on protease inhibitors for better antigen cross-presentation.

Leadership and Recognition

In 2012, Sander founded his own group at Leiden University and later joined the Institute of Chemical Immunology, where he’s a board member. His remarkable contributions have earned him fellowships, grants, and awards, including the 2012 Early Career Investigator Award from the British Biochemical Society.

Associate Editor Role for RSC Chemical Biology

Now, Sander van Kasteren takes on a new role as our Associate Editor, bringing his expertise to our publication. We’re thrilled to welcome him and look forward to the valuable insights he’ll bring to our community.

RSC Chemical Biology is now indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), PubMed Central, Scopus and Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index. Find out more about the journal and submit your work at rsc.li/rsc-chembio

Royal Society of Chemistry

Comments Off on Introducing Sander van Kasteren: Bridging Chemistry and Immunology as Associate Editor

Click’n lock: rapid exchange between unsymmetric tetrazines and thiols for reversible, chemoselective functionalisation of biomolecules with on-demand bioorthogonal locking

13 Dec 2023

About this article:

Click reactions play a crucial role in efficiently modifying complex biomolecules, particularly in the realm of biotherapeutics. The continuous challenge lies in their reversible and irreversible transformations, with chemists seeking ultimate control over molecular structures in dilute conditions and crowded environments.

In this groundbreaking article, we introduce the Click’n Lock principle, describing a novel reaction system capable of seamlessly switching from reversible to irreversible click transformations. Termed ‘TeTEx’ for ‘tetrazine – thiol exchange,’ this concept enables on-demand locking of products using bioorthogonal stimuli (dienophiles), providing a transformative switch from reversible to irreversible attachment.

Ingo

About RSC Chemical Biology

Led by Hiroaki Suga (University of Tokyo), RSC Chemical Biology is dedicated to publishing and disseminating the most exceptionally significant, breakthrough findings of interest to the chemical biology community. All submissions are handled by our experienced and internationally recognised Associate Editors. For more information on the journal, please visit the journal homepage.

As a gold open access journal, there are no barriers to accessing content and your research article will reach an international audience. Please note that the article processing charges are waived until mid-2022, so the journal is currently free to publish in.

Royal Society of Chemistry

Comments Off on Click’n lock: rapid exchange between unsymmetric tetrazines and thiols for reversible, chemoselective functionalisation of biomolecules with on-demand bioorthogonal locking

Predicting small molecule binding pockets on diacylglycerol kinases using chemoproteomics and AlphaFold

16 Nov 2023

Read the full article here.

About this article

Explore the world of secondary messengers in cell signaling with our latest research on Diacylglycerol (DAG) lipids and their role in cellular communication. DAG kinases (DGK) control cellular DAG levels through phosphorylation, making them crucial in understanding cell signaling pathways. While small molecule inhibitors targeting DGK proteins are valuable tools for investigating DAG signaling, their development has been challenging due to limited information on binding pockets within cells.

Our ground-breaking approach combines chemical proteomics and AlphaFold technology to predict previously undiscovered binding regions for the development of covalent inhibitors.

About RSC Chemical Biology

Royal Society of Chemistry

Comments Off on Predicting small molecule binding pockets on diacylglycerol kinases using chemoproteomics and AlphaFold

RSC Chemical Biology Webinar: Outstanding Paper Award Winner 2022

26 Oct 2023

Join us to celebrate the Outstanding Paper Award winners of 2022!

The team at RSC Chemical Biology are delighted to invite you to our upcoming webinar to celebrate the winner of our Outstanding Paper Award from 2022. The winner is Professor Craig Crews, of Yale University, for their paper “OligoTRAFTACs: A generalizable method for transcription factor degradation”.

The webinar, scheduled to last for one hour, will feature a presentation from the group of Professor Craig Crews discussing their work, and this will be followed by a presentation from Professor Michelle Arkin, an Editorial Board Member for RSC Chemical Biology, highlighting some ongoing work in her group at the University of California, San Francisco.

This event is being held online through Zoom and is completely free to attend. It will be held on Tuesday 21^st November at 17:00 GMT. You can find more information on our Event Page and can register for the event here.

We look forward to seeing you at the webinar!

Comments Off on RSC Chemical Biology Webinar: Outstanding Paper Award Winner 2022

The multivalent G-quadruplex (G4)-ligands MultiTASQs allow for versatile click chemistry-based investigations

23 Oct 2023

About this article

G-quadruplexes (or G4s) are four-stranded DNA and RNA structures that fold from guanine (G)-rich sequences. G4 are suspected to play key biological roles in human cells and diseases. Small molecules that selectively target G4s (or G4-ligands) can thus be used as modulators to gain insights into the cell circuitry where G4s are involved. While hundreds of G4-ligands have been designed, synthesized and used, most if not all of them are flat aromatic molecules prone to interact with the duplex-DNA (the major form of DNA within the nucleus), which mechanically decreases their specificity for G4s.

We have developed a brand new molecular design, following a biomimetic approach that hinges on the observation that G4s are stable secondary structures owing to the ability of Gs to self-associate to form G-quartets, and then of G-quartets to self-stack to form the columnar core of G4s. Therefore, using a synthetic G-quartet as a G4-ligand represents a unique example of biomimetic recognition of G4s, relying on a like-likes-like approach, which is the surest pledge for a very high G4-selectivity.

In this article, we report on the design, synthesis and use of synthetic G-quartet-based ligands, also referred to as TASQs (for template-assembled synthetic G-quartets). These TASQs are the latest prototypes of TASQs, being multivalent TASQs (that is why we refer to them as MultiTASQs) able to be functionalized in situ by click chemistry (both CuAAC and SPAAC) for optical imaging and affinity precipitation purposes. These bioorthogonal investigations thus provides unique information about G4 biology.

Click on the infographic to read the full paper!

About RSC Chemical Biology

Royal Society of Chemistry