Nature Chemistry Contents June 2012 Volume 4 Number 6 pp 427-512

Advertisement Looking to keep pace with global news and research in the chemical sciences? Join RSC e-membership today to receive a digital subscription to Chemistry World, the unrivalled monthly magazine with an international readership of 49,000 scientists. Access the latest developments in research and government policy, business news, features and opinion columns, jobs board, and networking opportunities. TABLE OF CONTENTS June 2012 Volume 4, Issue 6 Thesis Research Highlights Correction Blogroll News and Views Review Articles Corrigendum In Your Element Subscribe   Facebook   RSS   Recommend to library   Twitter   Advertisement Nature Nanotechnology is pleased to announce a special focus on nanotoxicology Includes free online access to selected articles for a limited time Sponsored by:   Thesis Top Chemical abstractions pp427 - 428 Michelle Francl doi:10.1038/nchem.1359 Michelle Francl wonders what abstract objects might be lurking in our beakers. Full Text | PDF Research Highlights Top Liquid crystals: Inverted influences | Biomimetic synthesis: Flinderoles facilitated | Molecular walkers: On the right track | Organic synthesis: Catalytic compatibility | Surface chemistry: Panning for gold Correction Top Force microscopy takes charge p431 doi:10.1038/nchem.1366 Full Text | PDF Blogroll Top Blogroll: Space dinosaurs! p431 doi:10.1038/nchem.1374 Full Text | PDF News and Views Top Proton conduction: Hopping along hydrogen bonds pp432 - 433 Rodolphe Vuilleumier and Daniel Borgis doi:10.1038/nchem.1365 Proton conduction in both water and other hydrogen-bonded liquids occurs through successive proton transfers along the hydrogen-bond network. But first-principles simulations have revealed that the mechanism by which this occurs in orthophosphoric acid has some unusual features. Full Text | PDF See also: Article by Vilčiauskas et al. Flow chemistry: A light touch to a deadly problem pp433 - 435 Kevin Booker-Milburn doi:10.1038/nchem.1356 Flow chemistry has grown in stature as a technique with the potential to deliver synthetic complexity with assembly-line-like efficiency. Application of flow technology to the front-line antimalarial drug artemisinin promises to revolutionalize treatment. Full Text | PDF Self-repairing polymers: Materials that heal themselves pp435 - 436 Howard M. Colquhoun doi:10.1038/nchem.1357 Previous approaches to the development of self-repairing polymeric materials have required either the input of external energy or the use of a healing agent. Now, a new type of elastomer, in which hard/soft phase-separation occurs at the nanoscale, displays efficient and entirely autonomic self-repair through reversible hydrogen bonding. Full Text | PDF See also: Article by Chen et al. Enzyme mimics: Halogen and chalcogen team up pp437 - 438 Pierangelo Metrangolo and Giuseppe Resnati doi:10.1038/nchem.1355 The behaviour of di-selenol enzyme mimics indicates that a halogen bond between selenium and iodine, and a chalcogen interaction between the two selenium atoms, play an important role in the activation of thyroid hormones. Full Text | PDF Asymmetric catalysis: The power of pairing pp438 - 439 Hajime Ito doi:10.1038/nchem.1363 Supramolecular catalysts that combine an anionic chiral scaffold, a cationic coordinating structure and a metal centre have been shown to be highly effective for asymmetric synthesis. The success opens a new avenue for the design of new catalysts with a wide variety of chiral environments. Full Text | PDF See also: Article by Ohmatsu et al. Fluorescent sensors: Bright ideas pp440 - 441 A. Prasanna de Silva doi:10.1038/nchem.1360 Sensing neuronal activity using fluorescence has many potential advantages over current methods. Now, by taking advantage of photoinduced electron transfer, fluorescent sensors have been developed that allow high-fidelity recording of neural signals in real time. Full Text | PDF Alkaloid synthesis: Indolizidines with ease pp441 - 442 Peter Shapland doi:10.1038/nchem.1364 A dihydroboration-amination sequence provides a step-economical route to indolizidine alkaloids — a common structure in bioactive natural products. Full Text | PDF Chemistry JOBS of the week An Interdisciplinary Training Programme on the Origin of Life, Self-Replication, Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry, Self-Assembling Materials and Analytical Chemistry. University of Groningen/Centre for Systems Chemistry Postdoctoral Biological And Physical Chemistry Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Chemistry and Biological Chemistry Division Inorganic Chemist - Metals Chemistry Kelly Scientific Resources Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Protein Chemistry / Immuno-receptor biology Genentech Postdoctoral Position in Polymer Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences Baylor College of Medicine More Science jobs from Chemistry EVENT Organometallic chemistry GRC 08.-13.07.12 RI, US More science events from Review Top The gold-sulfur interface at the nanoscale pp443 - 455 Hannu Häkkinen doi:10.1038/nchem.1352 Thiolate-protected gold surfaces and interfaces are archetypal systems in various fields of current research in nanoscience, materials science, inorganic chemistry and surface science. Examples include self-assembled monolayers of organic molecules on gold, passivated gold nanoclusters and molecule-gold junctions. This Review discusses recent experimental and theoretical breakthroughs that highlight common features of gold-sulfur bonding in these systems. Abstract | Full Text | PDF Articles Top Metal–organic frameworks with dynamic interlocked components pp456 - 460 V. Nicholas Vukotic, Kristopher J. Harris, Kelong Zhu, Robert W. Schurko and Stephen J. Loeb doi:10.1038/nchem.1354 The dynamics of mechanically interlocked molecules such as catenanes and rotaxanes have been studied in solution as examples of rudimentary molecular switches and machines. A metal–organic framework with a [2]rotaxane as a building block demonstrates that such dynamic processes can also operate inside a solid-state material. Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Chemical compounds The mechanism of proton conduction in phosphoric acid  pp461 - 466 Linas Vilčiauskas, Mark E. Tuckerman, Gabriel Bester, Stephen J. Paddison and Klaus-Dieter Kreuer doi:10.1038/nchem.1329 Proton transport in phosphate-based systems is important in biology and clean energy technologies, and phosphoric acid, being the best known intrinsic proton conductor, represents an important model. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations now reveal that the interplay between extended, polarized, hydrogen-bonded chains and a frustrated hydrogen-bond network gives rise to the high conductivity in liquid phosphoric acid. Abstract | Full Text | PDF See also: News and Views by Vuilleumier & Borgis Multiphase design of autonomic self-healing thermoplastic elastomers pp467 - 472 Yulin Chen, Aaron M. Kushner, Gregory A. Williams and Zhibin Guan doi:10.1038/nchem.1314 Polymer materials that could spontaneously heal like tissues in living systems would significantly improve the safety, lifetime, energy efficiency and environmental impact of man-made materials. Now, a general multiphase design of autonomous self-healing elastomeric materials that do not require the input of external energy or healing agents is reported. Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Chemical compounds See also: News and Views by Colquhoun Ion-paired chiral ligands for asymmetric palladium catalysis pp473 - 477 Kohsuke Ohmatsu, Mitsunori Ito, Tomoatsu Kunieda and Takashi Ooi doi:10.1038/nchem.1311 Rather than create a chiral catalyst by combining a chiral ligand with a metal, here an achiral phosphine ligand endowed with a cationic ammonium group is ion-paired with a chiral binaphtholate. A palladium catalyst based on this strategy is shown to be effective for highly enantioselective allylic alkylation of ɑ-nitrocarboxylates. Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Chemical compounds See also: News and Views by Ito Engineering methylaspartate ammonia lyase for the asymmetric synthesis of unnatural amino acids pp478 - 484 Hans Raj, Wiktor Szymański, Jandré de Villiers, Henriëtte J. Rozeboom, Vinod Puthan Veetil, Carlos R. Reis, Marianne de Villiers, Frank J. Dekker, Stefaan de Wildeman, Wim J. Quax, Andy-Mark W. H. Thunnissen, Ben L. Feringa, Dick B. Janssen and Gerrit J. Poelarends doi:10.1038/nchem.1338 Substituted aspartic acids are highly valuable as tools for biological research and as chiral building blocks for pharmaceuticals. Here, engineering of the enzyme methylaspartate ammonia lyase to accept a large variety of substituted amines and fumarates and catalyse the asymmetric synthesis of aspartic acid derivatives is described. Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Chemical compounds Light-triggered self-construction of supramolecular organic nanowires as metallic interconnects pp485 - 490 Vina Faramarzi, Frédéric Niess, Emilie Moulin, Mounir Maaloum, Jean-François Dayen, Jean-Baptiste Beaufrand, Silvia Zanettini, Bernard Doudin and Nicolas Giuseppone doi:10.1038/nchem.1332 Triarylamine derivatives in solution have been self-assembled into organic nanowires between two electrodes, under white-light irradiation and in the presence of a voltage. The resulting fibres possess a very high electric conductivity as well as a metallic behaviour when cooled down to a temperature of 1.5 K. Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Chemical compounds Biomimetic radical polymerization via cooperative assembly of segregating templates pp491 - 497 Ronan McHale, Joseph P. Patterson, Per B. Zetterlund and Rachel K. O'Reilly doi:10.1038/nchem.1331 Nature synthesizes proteins and nucleic acids by polymerization methods that use well-regulated and segregated templates. Now, synthetic block-copolymer templates have been designed to assemble in a biomimetic fashion to segregate, and thus control, the synthetic radical polymerization of complementary nucleobase-containing vinyl monomers, to yield high-molecular-weight, low-polydispersity polymer chains. Abstract | Full Text | PDF A soluble copper–bipyridine water-oxidation electrocatalyst pp498 - 502 Shoshanna M. Barnett, Karen I. Goldberg and James M. Mayer doi:10.1038/nchem.1350 Copper and bipyridine (bpy) self-assemble in aqueous solutions at high pH into an active electrocatalyst for the oxidation of water to O2, one of the great challenges in energy catalysis. These solutions contain primarily (bpy)Cu(OH)2, and are robust and active catalysts, albeit at high overpotentials. Abstract | Full Text | PDF Acyclic cucurbit[n]uril molecular containers enhance the solubility and bioactivity of poorly soluble pharmaceuticals pp503 - 510 Da Ma, Gaya Hettiarachchi, Duc Nguyen, Ben Zhang, James B. Wittenberg, Peter Y. Zavalij, Volker Briken and Lyle Isaacs doi:10.1038/nchem.1326 Acyclic cucurbituril-type molecular containers have been found to increase the solubility of insoluble pharmaceutical agents in water by up to 2,750-fold. In vitro and in vivo toxicology studies suggest that the containers are well tolerated, and paclitaxel solubilized in this manner efficiently kills HeLa and SK-OV-3 cancer cells. Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Chemical compounds Corrigendum Top Exchange-enhanced reactivity in bond activation by metal-oxo enzymes and synthetic reagents p511 Sason Shaik, Hui Chen and Deepa Janardanan doi:10.1038/nchem.1353 Full Text | PDF In Your Element Top Ambiguous bromine p512 Matt Rattley doi:10.1038/nchem.1361 Many chemical elements behave quite differently depending on the compound they are found in, but Matt Rattley argues that bromine does so in a particularly striking manner. Full Text | PDF Top Advertisement The Naturejobs Career Expo London 2012 UK's largest career fair and conference focused exclusively on the scientific world. 20 September 2012 - Business Design Centre, London, UK Register today! Career fair is FREE of charge. Conference fee is £40.   Natureevents is a fully searchable, multi-disciplinary database designed to maximise exposure for events organisers. The contents of the Natureevents Directory are now live. The digital version is available here. Find the latest scientific conferences, courses, meetings and symposia on natureevents.com. For event advertising opportunities across the Nature Publishing Group portfolio please contact natureevents@nature.com More Nature Events

You have been sent this Table of Contents Alert because you have opted in to receive it. You can change or discontinue your e-mail alerts at any time, by modifying your preferences on your nature.com account at: www.nature.com/myaccount (You will need to log in to be recognised as a nature.com registrant) For further technical assistance, please contact our registration department For print subscription enquiries, please contact our subscription department For other enquiries, please contact our customer feedback department Nature Publishing Group | 75 Varick Street, 9th Floor | New York | NY 10013-1917 | USA Nature Publishing Group's worldwide offices: London - Paris - Munich - New Delhi - Tokyo - Melbourne San Diego - San Francisco - Washington - New York - Boston Macmillan Publishers Limited is a company incorporated in England and Wales under company number 785998 and whose registered office is located at Brunel Road, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. © 2012 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved.