Publications related to Wagging the Tail: Essential Role of Substrate Flexibility in FAAH Catalysis

Membrane specificity of the human cholesterol transfer protein STARD4

STARD4 regulates cholesterol homeostasis by transferring cholesterol between the plasma membrane and endoplasmic reticulum. The STARD4 structure features a helix-grip fold surrounding a large hydrophobic cavity holding the sterol. Its access is controlled ...

Academic Press Ltd- Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Probing Catalytic Sites and Adsorbate Spillover on Ultrathin FeO2-x Film on Ir(111) during CO Oxidation

Harald Brune, Hao Yin, Wei Fang

The spatially resolved identification of active sites on the heterogeneous catalyst surface is an essential step toward directly visualizing a catalytic reaction with atomic scale. To date, ferrous centers on platinum group metals have shown promising pote ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Engineering Frustrated Lewis Pair Active Sites in Porous Organic Scaffolds for Catalytic CO2 Hydrogenation

Anne-Clémence Corminboeuf, Jacob Terence Blaskovits, Shubhajit Das, Rubén Laplaza Solanas

Frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs), featuring reactive combinations of Lewis acids and Lewis bases, have been utilized for myriad metal-free homogeneous catalytic processes. Immobilizing the active Lewis sites to a solid support, especially to porous scaffolds, ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

The simultaneous Selective Catalytic Reduction of N2O and NO over Fe-exchanged zeolites

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Iron-exchanged zeolites are industrial heterogeneous catalysts deployed to remediate anthropogenic emissions of both nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2). Despite the extensive scientific attention received, limited knowledge is availab ...

EPFL2024

Chalcogen bonding catalysis

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Catalysts play a major role in chemical synthesis, and catalysis is considered to be a green and economic process. Catalysis is dominated by covalent interactions between the catalyst and substrate. The design of non-covalent catalysts came into limelight ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2024

Arylative Ring Expansion of 3-Vinylazetidin-3-Ols and 3-Vinyloxetan-3-Ols to Dihydrofurans by Dual Palladium and Acid Catalysis

Qian Wang, Jieping Zhu, Takuji Fujii

In contrast to the well-studied 1-vinylcyclobu- tanols, the reactivity of 3-vinylazetidin-3-ols 1 and 3- vinyloxetan-3-ols 2 under transition metal catalysis remains largely unexplored. We report herein their unique reactivity under dual palladium and acid ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2024

Computational Studies for the Design of Metalloenzyme Mimics

Guido Frisari

At present, there is no general standard automated method for engineering metalloenzymes, industrially-relevant systems able to catalyze environmentally friendly reactions. One of the most studied natural metalloenzymes is the second isoform of human carbo ...

EPFL2023

An Overview of Heterogeneous Catalysts Based on Hypercrosslinked Polystyrene for the Synthesis and Transformation of Platform Chemicals Derived from Biomass

Lioubov Kiwi

Platform chemicals, also known as chemical building blocks, are substances that serve as starting materials for the synthesis of various value-added products, which find a wide range of applications. These chemicals are the key ingredients for many fine an ...

MDPI2023

Effects of thermal, mechanical, and electrostatic perturbations on lipid membrane hydration investigated by second harmonic imaging

Seonwoo Lee

Hydrated lipid bilayer membranes are crucial components of cells and organelles, serving as the outer boundary that separates the cellular components from the extracellular environment. Lipid membranes regulate their structures and functions by dynamically ...

EPFL2023

Cycloalkane Oxidation Catalyzed by Copper-based Catalysts with H2O2 under Mild Conditions

Nukorn Plainpan, Jantira Chimlert

Copper-catalyzed cycloalkane oxidation using H2O2 as an oxidant was investigated under mild conditions. The copper catalysts studied in this work ranged from commercially-available copper(II) salts to copper(II) complexes containing polypyridyl ligands. Va ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2023

Optimal enzyme utilization suggests that concentrations and thermodynamics determine binding mechanisms and enzyme saturations

Vassily Hatzimanikatis, Daniel Robert Weilandt, Asli Sahin

One of the main challenges hampering the development of kinetic models is the lack of kinetic parameters for many enzymatic reactions. Here, the authors introduce a framework to explore the catalytically optimal operating conditions of any complex enzyme m ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Dual Photoredox and Copper Catalysis: Enantioselective 1,2-Amidocyanation of 1,3-Dienes

Qian Wang, Jieping Zhu, Dan Forster, Weisi Guo

Dual photoredox−transition-metal catalysis has emerged as a powerful tool for the development of chemical transformations. However, its application in the selective difunctionalization of 1,3-dienes remains essentially unexploited. By the synergistic actio ...

2023

Simultaneous membrane and RNA binding by Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus capsid protein

Sarah Victoria Barrass

Tick-borne encephalitis virus is an enveloped, pathogenic, RNA virus in the family Flaviviridae, genus Flavivirus. Viral particles are formed when the nucleocapsid, consisting of an RNA genome and multiple copies of the capsid protein, buds through the end ...

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE2023

Electro- and photochemical H-2 generation by Co(ii) polypyridyl-based catalysts bearing ortho-substituted pyridines

Rosario Scopelliti, Euro Solari, Albert Ruggi, Vincent Artero, Fiorella Lucarini

Cobalt(II) complexes featuring hexadentate amino-pyridyl ligands have been recently discovered as highly active catalysts for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER), whose high performance arises from the possibility of assisting proton transfer processes v ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Simultaneous Electrophysiology and Imaging Reveal Changes in Lipid Membrane Thickness and Tension upon Uptake of Amphiphilic Gold Nanoparticles

Francesco Stellacci, Paulo Henrique Jacob Silva, Camilla Servidio, Xufeng Xu

Amphiphilic gold core nanoparticles (AmNPs) striped with hydrophilic 11-mercapto-1-undecanesulfonate (MUS) and hydrophobic 1-octanethiol (OT) ligands are promising candidates for drug carriers that passively and nondisruptively enter cells. Yet, how they i ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

Interplay of the mechanical and structural properties of DNA nanostructures determines their electrostatic interactions with lipid membranes

Maartje Martina Cornelia Bastings, Cem Tekin, Vincenzo Caroprese, Diana Kornelia Morzy

Nucleic acids and lipids function in close proximity in biological processes, as well as in nanoengineered constructs for therapeutic applications. As both molecules carry a rich charge profile, and frequently coexist in complex ionic solutions, the electr ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2023

Anisotropic In-Plane strain engineering Ni(OH)2 to activate alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction

Chao Yang, Kangning Zhao

Realizing a hydrogen economy strongly requires alkaline water electrolysis to achieve large-scale generation of H2, but lacks stable and efficient catalysts. The insufficient active sites in Ni(OH)2 impair the catalytic performance of alkaline HER. Herein, ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2023

Article Structure and functionality of a multimeric human COQ7:COQ9 complex

Matteo Dal Peraro, Luciano Andres Abriata

Coenzyme Q (CoQ) is a redox-active lipid essential for core metabolic pathways and antioxidant defense. CoQ is synthesized upon the mitochondrial inner membrane by an ill-defined "complex Q" metabolon. Here, we present structure-function analyses of a lipi ...

CELL PRESS2022

Mapping Active Site Geometry to Activity in Immobilized Frustrated Lewis Pair Catalysts

Anne-Clémence Corminboeuf, Jacob Terence Blaskovits, Shubhajit Das, Rubén Laplaza Solanas

The immobilization of molecular catalysts imposes spatial constraints on their active site. We reveal that in bifunctional catalysis such constraints can also be utilized as an appealing handle to boost intrinsic activity through judicious control of the a ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2022

Rh-catalyzed C-H Bond Heteroarylation with Hypervalent Iodine Reagents and Pd-Catalyzed Tethered Functionalizations of Carbon-Carbon Multiple Bonds

Ashis Kumar Das

Transition metal-catalyzed C-H activation is a powerful tool for the synthesis of organic building blocks, materials, and natural products. Over the last decade, directing-group-assisted metal-catalyzed C-H functionalization has attracted increasing intere ...

EPFL2022