Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Blog

Scaffold diversity of the organic chemistry universe

‘Chemists’ historical exploration of chemical space has been highly uneven and unsystematic’ write Adam Nelson and coworkers.  In this Perspective article they seek to pull together  synthetic strategies that have been designed to allow a more systematic discovery of biologically active small molecules, with particular emphasis on combinatorial strategies.

Areas covered:

• The “build–couple–pair” approach
• Ambiphile pairing reactions
• Folding and branching pathways
• Oligomer-based approaches to scaffold diversity

This hot article is free to access for the next four weeks – download today to read more on the ‘challenge for synthetic chemists in the twenty-first century’:

Towards the systematic exploration of chemical space
Mark Dow, Martin Fisher, Thomas James, Francesco Marchetti and Adam Nelson
DOI: 10.1039/C1OB06098H

In this ‘Hot’ OBC Perspective, Alethea Tabor (University College London, UK) provides an excellent overview of the recent advances in the chemical synthesis of lantibiotics, a field which has considerably moved on since the last review in the area in 2005 by W. A. van der Donk.

The approaches covered include:

• solution-phase  and solid-phase synthesis
•  biomimetic approaches
•  biotransformation strategies

Keep up-to date with the synthesis of these structurally complex peptides possessing unique antibacterial properties and read this review article, FREE to access for the next 4 weeks*


The challenge of the lantibiotics: synthetic approaches to thioether-bridged peptides
Alethea B. Tabor
Org. Biomol. Chem., 2011, 9, 7606-7628
DOI: 10.1039/C1OB05946G

* upon a simple registration process for individual access