Chemical Science Blog

amyloid fibrils

Group 9 metal complexes can inhibit amyloid aggregation, thought to be responsible for neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease patients.

Dik-Lung Ma (University of Hong Kong) and colleagues made iridium(III) and rhodium(III) complexes that can both inhibit the aggregation of Ab_1-40 peptides and acts as luminescent probes for the peptides. Their iridium complex is the first example of a transition metal complex that displays a ‘switch-on’ luminescence response upon binding to Ab_1-40 peptides; the magnitude of response can be used to distinguish between the peptide’s monomeric and fibrillar forms.

Read the full Edge Article for free in Chemical Science.

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Scientists have made a large-pored metal-organic framework (MOF) that they say provides a conclusive answer to a long standing issue: do catalytic reactions take place inside the pores?

Chiral MOFs are of great interest for enantioselective catalysis but they have had limited success as enantioselective catalysis in terms of catalytic turnover and stereoselectivity, partly due to their lack of void space. There are a number of reports of chiral MOFs with pores large enough to accommodate whole molecules. It has been assumed that the reactions occur both at the surface and also in the pores but until now the evidence has been circumstantial, according to Nakcheol Jeong at Korea University in Seoul.

Jeong’s MOF has organic linkers that maintain local chirality with functional groups that can be modified on demand to produce new catalysts. He used the MOF catalyst for a carbonyl-ene reaction and says he has conclusively proved that the reaction occurs entirely inside the pores.

You can read Jeong’s Edge article for free in Chemical Science.  Let us know if you agree with the conclusions by leaving your comments below.

I am pleased to announce that Professor Christopher Bielawski (University of Texas at Austin, USA) has joined the Chemical Science Editorial Board as Associate Editor for polymer science.

Professor Bielawski’s research program lies at the interface of polymer science and materials chemistry, and focuses on the synthesis and study of unique organic and organometallic macromolecules.

His Chemical Science Editorial Office opens for submissions on 1st March 2011. We look forward to working with him and welcome him to his new role.

Also of interest:
A benzocrown-6-calix[4]arene methacrylate copolymer: Selective extraction of caesium ions from a multi-component system
Brett M. Rambo, Sung Kuk Kim, Jong Seung Kim, Christopher W. Bielawski and Jonathan L. Sessler
Chem. Sci., 2010, 1, 716-722

Synthesis and self-assembly of poly(3-hexylthiophene)-block-poly(acrylic acid)
Zicheng Li, Robert J. Ono, Zong-Quan Wu and Christopher W. Bielawski
Chem. Commun., 2011, 47, 197-199

The chemistry of graphene oxide
Daniel R. Dreyer, Sungjin Park, Christopher W. Bielawski and Rodney S. Ruoff
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2010, 39, 228-240

Rachel O’Reilly joins the Chem Soc Rev Editorial Board

David MacMillan, Stephen Buchwald, Dean Toste and Jeffrey Long have recently been identified as some of the world’s top 100 chemists. That’s great news for them and also great news for Chemical Science – we’re delighted to have so many world leaders handling manuscripts and setting the scientific standards for our flagship journal.

The top 100 list, compiled by Thomson Reuters, also contains a number of Chemical Science authors. Overall, this is an impressive position for such a new journal, putting us on a par with other more established premier journals in the general chemistry arena. So if you want your paper to be seen and handled by the best, submit to Chemical Science.

US scientists have come up with a method that makes it easier to extract compounds that are difficult to isolate from crude natural product mixtures.

Erin Carlson and her team at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, used resins to target and isolate desired compounds in crude extract mixtures, in this case alcohols.

Isolating compounds from natural product mixtures is important because of their high propensity to interact with biological targets. Nearly half of currently available drugs are from natural products and pharmaceutical companies analyse crude extracts from, for example, plant materials for biological activity. Any active compounds are purified either by extraction and/or chromatography.

Current extraction methods rely on the compounds’ physical properties such as solubility, polarity or size. Despite advances in separation technology, purification is still problematic and time-consuming. ‘Isolation of trace quantities of new natural products is often thwarted by the crude extract containing a plethora of compounds, with a heavy reliance on multiple liquid chromatography processes,’ says Gordon Florence, an expert in bioactive natural products from the University of St Andrews, UK.

Carlson’s team used a silyl-functionalised resin to capture and bind to the alcohol anisomycin – a protein biosynthesis inhibitor – from a mixture of compounds extracted from soil bacteria Streptomyces griseolus. The team washed the resin to remove non-targeted compounds before cleaving the anisomycin from the resin and found that the resin didn’t bind to compounds with functional groups other than alcohol. Following regeneration, the resin could be reused.

A silyl-functionalised resin was used to capture and bind to the alcohol anisomycin – a protein biosynthesis inhibitor – from a mixture of compounds extracted from soil bacteria Streptomyces griseolus

Read the full Chemistry World article here

Link to journal Article
Chemoselective enrichment for natural products discovery
Antoinette Y. Odendaal, Darci J. Trader and Erin E. Carlson,
Chem. Sci., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/c0sc00620c

Many congratulations to Professor David MacMillan from the Chemical Science team, who has won the ACS award for creative work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry.

We are delighted to learn that Professor MacMillan, Editor-in-Chief for the Royal Society of Chemistry’s new flagship journal Chemical Science, has been recognised for his contributions to organic chemistry, especially for his ground breaking research in organocatalysis.  

Professor MacMillan sporting a Chemical Science hat at the Pacifichem meeting back in December (2010)

Professor MacMillan has published a couple of Edge Articles in Chemical Science, which are freely available for you to download:-  The organocatalytic three-step total synthesis of (+)-frondosin B  Maud Reiter, Staffan Torssell, Sandra Lee and David W. C. MacMillan Chem. Sci., 2010, 1, 37–42   Total synthesis of diazonamide A Robert R. Knowles, Joseph Carpenter, Simon B. Blakey, Akio Kayano, Ian K. Mangion, Christopher J. Sinz and David W. C. MacMillan Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 308-311

Professor MacMillan will receive his prize at the 241st ACS national meeting in Anaheim, CA, in the spring. Dr Robert Eagling, Chemical Science Managing Editor, will also be attending this meeting and if you would like to arrange a meeting with Robert, then please contact the Chemical Science Editorial Office.