Themed collection Most popular 2019-2020 chemical biology articles

The vital roles of metals in nutrients and medicines are not accessible to purely organic compounds.

Enzymes are excellent catalysts that are increasingly being used in industry and academia. This Perspective provides a general and practical guide to enzymes and their synthetic potential, primarily aimed at synthetic organic chemists.

The establishment of photo-controllable bioorthogonal chemistry is one of the most significant advances in chemical biology to perturb and study biological processes.

Copper-free click chemistry has resulted in a change of paradigm, showing that artificial chemical reactions can occur on cell surfaces, in cell cytosol, or within the body. It has emerged as a valuable tool in biomedical fields.

Gly-tag resin precisely captures and releases a protein with one glycine at the N-terminus. The user-friendly protocol delivers analytically pure protein free of metal contaminants.

The complexity of the simplest conceivable cell suggests that the chemistry of prebiotic mixtures needs to be explored to understand the intricate network of prebiotic reactions that led to the emergence of life.

Cyclooctatetraene-conjugated cyanine dyes represent an effective strategy to improve biocompatibility under light in live-cell fluorescence imaging and analysis of mitochondria.

Giant unilamellar vesicles having pH-sensitive bilayers can undergo self-division triggered by an internal enzymatic (urea–urease) reaction coupled to a cross-membrane transport of the chemical species.

Live imaging of mRNA in cells and organisms is important for understanding the dynamic aspects underlying its function.

Latent activity-based probes have been developed for deubiquitinating enzymes using a thiol–ene strategy, labelling following a specific binding interaction.

Metabolic inhibitors based on rare bacterial monosaccharide scaffolds interfere with bacterial glycan biosynthesis in a bacteria-selective manner.

Phase change material based H₂O₂ self-supply nanoparticles for enhanced thermal responsive chemodynamic tumor therapy.

We report the development of post-transcriptional chemical methods that enable control over CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing activity both in in vitro assays and in living cells.

Tetrazylmethyl groups are reported here as bioorthogonal protecting groups that are readily removed by isonitriles, establishing a valuable addition to the dissociative bioorthogonal chemistry and synthetic methodology toolboxes.

Isomeric triazines can be tuned to exhibit unique reaction profiles with biocompatible strained alkenes and alkynes.

A hollow structured biophotocatalyst comprising an UCNP core and mesoporous cerium oxide shell was constructed to realize oxygen self-efficient photodynamic therapy upon 980 nm laser irradiation under multiple imaging guidance.

Perfect partners for photoprotection: orally ingestible sporopollenin confers striking photoprotection to the powerful, polyene antibiotic, marinomycin A, as well as enabling its selective extraction.

New light on H₂O₂-activated prodrugs: the first α-ketoamide based prodrug opens up new alternatives for designing non-boron based H₂O₂-responsive promoieties.

Atomic resolution map of the soluble amyloid beta assembly (Aβ_n) “toxic surfaces” that facilitate the early pathogenic events in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Innovative chemotherapeutic agents that are active against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) are urgently required to control the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic.

Directed evolution of transaminases is a widespread technique in the development of highly sought-after biocatalysts for industrial applications.

The analysis of inositol poly- and pyrophosphates, an important group of eukaryotic messengers, is enabled by applying ¹³C-labeled inositol.

We describe the fabrication of hollow microspheres consisting of mesoporous silica nanoshells decorated with an inner layer of palladium nanoparticles and their use as Pd-nanoreactors in aqueous media.

NIM-7 is demonstrated to be a multicomponent fluorescent probe that accumulates in both lipid droplets and lysosomes after entering cells, giving rise to yellow and red fluorescence emission, respectively. This allows the two organelles to be visualized concurrently.

Dual-biomarker-triggered fluorescent probes were developed for simultaneous detection of the two biomarkers H₂S and hNQO1 in cancer cells.

Nuclei of living cells fluoresce brighter after staining with rhodamine–Hoechst 5-isomers.

Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) is an important cellular signaling molecule that exhibits promising protective effects.

In this work, a novel NIR two-photon fluorescence probe DCM-APN is reported for tracking APN in vitro and in vivo.

Divinylpyrimidine (DVP) linkers enable access to highly stable and functional antibody–drug conjugates.

Site-selective conjugation generally requires both (i) molecular engineering of the protein of interest to introduce a conjugation site at a defined location and (ii) a site-specific conjugation technology.