Chemical Science Blog

Iron oxide nanoparticles coated with glutathione (purple), which is anchored by dopamine (yellow) and binds to the protein

US scientists have used magnetic nanoparticles with specific ligands to latch on to and visualise specific proteins in living cells. The approach could be used to identify new, selective ligands that bind proteins, which may help uncover drug–target interactions inside cells, say the researchers. Also, using magnetic nanoparticles means that the distribution, orientation and aggregation of cellular proteins could be controlled, leading to new ways to control the fate of cells.

A deeper understanding of protein function inside cells is essential as scientists try to find new ways to diagnose and treat disease. The first challenge is to locate the proteins involved and find out what they are doing, which is not an easy feat, considering the abundance of different proteins in our cells.

Read the full article in Chemistry World

Link to journal article
Magnetic nanoparticles for direct protein sorting inside live cells
Yue Pan ,  Marcus J. C. Long ,  Hsin-Chieh Lin ,  Lizbeth Hedstrom and Bing Xu
Chem. Sci., 2012, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C2SC20519J

I am delighted to announce that Professor Jihong Yu (Jilin University, China) has joined the Chemical Science Editorial Board as the Associate Editor for Inorganic Materials.

Professor Yu’s research focuses on the designed synthesis of zeolitic porous functional materials. She obtained the National Outstanding Youth Fund of China in 2001, and was awarded National Prize for Natural Science in 2006, the 6th Chinese Youth Woman Scientist Award in 2009, and the Bau Family Award in 2010 for World Chinese Inorganic Chemists. She is now the Chief Scientist of the National Basic Research Project of China. 

Professor Yu’s Editorial Office will open for submissions imminently.

To submit your exceptional research to Professor Yu or any of our other outstanding Associate Editors, please use our online submission site.

Scientists in Germany and Canada have developed a new way to capture sulfur dioxide gas. It could minimise the environmental impact of the gas, which causes acid rain.

The team made a series of frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs) consisting of a bulky phosphane Lewis base component and a boron Lewis acid component. The FLPs rapidly and efficiently trap sulfur dioxide by adding the phosphane component to sulfur and the boron to oxygen.

Link to journal article
Reactions of Phosphorus/Boron Frustrated Lewis Pairs with SO₂
M Sajid et al
Chem. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2sc21161k

The surface chemistry of proteins makes them stable in complex biological environments. Scientists in the US have investigated why to enable peptide-based materials that resist non-specific interactions (stealth compounds) to be designed.

The cytoplasm is a crowded environment containing lots of different molecules but proteins resist non-specific interactions with these molecules. Understanding and mimicking nature’s resistance to non-specific interactions is key to addressing emerging challenges in chemistry, especially in practical applications where complex environments can degrade materials and surface coatings.

Here, the team has used structural bioinformatics to study proteins and molecular chaperones, which guide proteins from a misfolded or unfolded conformation back into a native conformation. They found that nature uses sequence design to modulate non-specific interactions so that the proteins function properly. Specifically, lysine and glutamic acid are the most abundant amino acids on the surface of proteins.

Link to journal article
Decoding nonspecific interactions from nature
A D White et al
Chem. Sci., DOI: 10.1039/c2sc21135a

Scientists in the UK have demonstrated that bottromycin (an antibiotic that works against MRSA) is biosynthesised from a larger precursor ribosomal peptide. This was proposed following a genome mining analysis of Streptomyces scabies and confirmed by a series of gene deletion experiments. The work also identifies S. scabies as a previously unknown producer of bottromycin. An almost identical gene cluster was also identified in S. bottropensis, an established bottromycin producer. Bottromycin is the first ribosomal peptide natural product that derives from the N-terminus of a larger prepeptide and the first terrestrial peptide to be directly ethylated at beta-positions.

Bottromycin is active in vitro but unstable in vivo so if scientists can engineer its biosynthesis to make unnatural analogues they might be able to make good new antibiotics. By identifying this pathway the team should facilitate the generation of a library of bottromycin-like antibiotics.

Link to journal article
Identification and characterisation of the gene cluster for the anti-MRSA antibiotic bottromycin: Expanding the biosynthetic diversity of ribosomal peptides
W J K Crone, F J Leeper and A W Truman
Chem. Sci., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2sc21190d

Physical organic chemistry, the study of the underlying principles and rationale of organic reactions which looks at the interrelationships between the structure and reactivity of organic molecules, now encompasses a wider range of contexts than ever before

Making use of tools such as chemical kinetics, quantum chemistry, thermochemistry, chemical equilibrium and computational chemistry, to name but a few, researchers are investigating topics such as:

• Supramolecular interactions, aggregation and reactivity
• The computation of transition states and mechanisms
• Molecular recognition, reactions and catalysis in biology
• Materials where molecular structure controls function
• Structure activity correlations
• Mechanisms in synthesis and catalysis

To highlight some of the cutting edge research that ChemComm, Chemical Science and Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry publish we have collected a selection of articles for you to enjoy. These will be free to access until 25^th September!

Click here for the full list of free articles