ORGANICS & CARBS
STU BORMAN, C&EN WASHINGTON
Exemplifying new organic reactions devised this year, Noritaka Mizuno
of the University of Tokyo and coworkers developed a hydrogen peroxide
-based system for converting a range of linear and cyclic olefins to e
poxides with high selectivity and high atom economy [Science, 300, 964
(2003)]. It's an advance over earlier epoxidations with expensive per
oxides and peracids or with environmentally polluting chlorine.
And a strategy to prepare molecular crystals with perfectly predictabl
e architecture--by carrying out reactions on molecular crystals with p
orous interiors containing reagent-accessible reactive sites--was demo
nstrated by a group led by James D. Wuest of the University of Montrea
l [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 42, 5303 (2003)].
In organic catalysis, the first metal complexes that catalyze transami
dation (amide-exchange reactions) efficiently under moderate condition
s were identified by Shannon S. Stahl, Samuel H. Gellman, and coworker
s at the University of Wisconsin, Madison [J. Am. Chem. Soc., 125, 342
2 (2003)]. These complexes could expand the range of synthetically acc
essible amide-based compounds.
R. Morris Bullock and Vladimir K. Dioumaev of Brookhaven National Labo
ratory discovered an organometallic tungsten complex that precipitates
at the end of a ketone hydrosilylation reaction--providing a new way
to separate catalyst from product [Nature, 424, 530 (2003)].
In carbohydrate chemistry this year, the first enzymatic method for th
e synthesis of sulfur-linked oligosaccharides--an approach that could
be useful for constructing thioglycosylated proteins--was developed by
Stephen G. Withers and coworkers at the University of British Columbi
a, Vancouver [Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 42, 352 (2003)].
A novel way to identify proteins derivatized with O-linked N-acetylglu
cosamine (O-GlcNAc) or O-linked N-acetylgalactosamine groups was devis
ed by Carolyn R. Bertozzi of the University of California, Berkeley, a
nd coworkers [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100, 9116 (2003); Proc. Natl
. Acad. Sci. USA, published online Dec. 1,
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/2335201100v1]. The method--in which azides are used as h
andles for introducing detectable probes selectively into either type
of glycosylated protein--could prove useful for high-throughput proteo
mics
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FROM 10.10.106.155