Themed collection Chemical Biology

In this review we discuss the rapid developments on artificial structures meant to manipulate the immune system.

Inteins are a unique class of auto-processing domains with numerous applications in protein engineering and chemical biology.

This review highlights recent advances and identifies the challenges and opportunities in chemical glycobiology, an emerging subfield of chemical biology.

We highlight current glycovaccines in the clinic and derive principles for the construction of the next generation of synthetically defined glycoconjugate vaccines.

Chemistry meets biology: parallels between covalent intermediates in chemical glycosylation and enzymatic glycoside hydrolysis reactions.

Protein kinases catalyzed phosphorylations of peptide and protein substrates.

The trimethyl lock provides unmatched attributes as a trigger for the release of small molecules by an enzymatic, chemical, or photolytic process.

We summarize the current picture of oxygen-induced inhibition of the different classes of hydrogenases and discuss possible avenues that might lead to tailored oxygen-robust enzyme variants.

This minireview discusses current progress in, and important considerations for, the emerging field of glycoconjugated anticancer therapeutics.

Metal complexes are increasingly being used to inhibit enzymes.

Chemical modifications modulate aptamer functionality and help to assert their full application potential.

An overview of the studies concerning the interactions of platinum anticancer agents with proteins/peptides is provided.

The pyrazole and salen ligandosides, when combined, are able to create stable multi-copper ion complexing DNA duplex structures in a cooperative fashion.

A RNA triggered chemical peptidyl transfer reaction leads to a cytotoxic peptide conjugate that requires turnover in RNA for bioactivity.

A divergent synthetic strategy for generating helical p53 peptides bearing functionalised staple linkages, allowing for efficient optimisation of cellular activity.

Evaluation of new acyl carrier protein hydrolase homologs from proteobacteria and cyanobacteria reveals significant variation in substrate selectivity and kinetics.

Structure-dependent anticancer activity of metallo-helices, novel interactions with potential drug targets, and evidence of an apoptotic mechanism are presented.

Dityrosine-linked Aβ dimers have been synthesized and display decreased rates of fibrilization and increased neuronal cell toxicity compared with the corresponding monomeric peptides.

A terbium(III) complex exhibits sensitive luminescence response to purine bases in DNA, which can be used to recognize DNA depurination as a selective time-resolved luminescence probe.

MR Imaging probes for NMDA receptors on a hybrid NSC-34 cell line show relaxation enhancements; the receptors have been visualised by microscopy and the specificity and reversibility of binding demonstrated.

A cyclic peptide inhibitor of the CtBP transcription repressor, discovered using a genetically encoded HTS platform, is used to link upregulated glycolytic flux to cell-cycle regulation in tumors.

We challenge a polymerase ribozyme with an array of nucleotide variants to assess its tolerance of substrate heterogeneity. We uncover specificity determinants, and describe the implications for primordial RNA replication.

Primary carbons of propane and ethane are hydroxylated under high-pressure conditions of the alkanes (0.5 MPa) by wild-type P450BM3.

We apply the Rosetta algorithm to repack the hydrophobic core of a β-peptide bundle while retaining both structure and stability.

To test the hypothesis that FAAH recruits its hydrophobic substrates directly from the cellular lipid bilayer, we have created clickable, photoreactive inhibitors that enable exploration of the enzyme's active site microenvironment in native cellular membranes.

We present a modular dendrimer-based platform for simultaneous dual fluorescence imaging of hydrogen peroxide and pH gradients in the phagosomes of RAW 264.7 macrophages during immune insult.