The determination of the temperature dependence of enzyme catalysis has traditionally been a labourious undertaking. We have developed a new approach to the classical Arrhenius parameter estimation by fitting the change in velocity under a gradual change in temperature. The evaluation with a simulated dataset shows that the approach is valid. The approach is demonstrated as a useful tool by ...

The synthesis of novel 5,7-diaryl and diheteroaryl indoles has been explored via efficient double Suzuki–Miyaura coupling. The method notably employs a low catalyst loading of Pd(PPh₃)₄ (1.5 mol%/coupling) and water as the reaction solvent to obtain 5,7-diarylated indoles without using N-protecting groups in up to 91% yield. The approach is also suitable for N-protected and ...

Nearly a half-century after Gouterman classified the UV–vis–NIR spectra of porphyrin derivatives as normal, hyper, or hypso, we propose a heretofore unsuspected “mechanism” underlying hypso spectra. Hypsoporphyrins, which exhibit blueshifted optical spectra relative to normal porphyrins (such as Zn porphyrins), typically involve dn transition metal ions, where n > 6. The spectral blueshifts have ...

A combination of Pt L₃-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy (EXAFS and XANES) and DFT (TPSS) calculations have been performed on powder samples of the archetypal platinum porphyrinoid complexes Pt^II[TpCF₃PP], Pt^IV[TpCF₃PP]Cl₂, and Pt^IV[TpCF₃PC](Ar)(py), where TpCF₃PP^2- = meso-tetrakis(p-tr ...

Capture of CO₂ by amines is an attractive synthetic strategy for the formation of carbamates. Such reactions can be mediated by superbases, such as 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine (TMG), with previous implications that zwitterionic superbase–CO₂ adducts are able to actively transfer the carboxylate group to various substrates. Here we report a detailed investigation of zwitterionic ...

Background: MBLs form a large and heterogeneous group of bacterial enzymes conferring resistance to b-lactam antibiotics, including carbapenems. A large environmental reservoir of MBLs has been identified, which can act as a source for transfer into human pathogens. Therefore, structural investigation of environmental and clinically rare MBLs can give new insights into structure–activity relationships ...

The development of green Buchwald–Hartwig aminations has long been considered challenging, due to the high sensitivity of the reaction to the environment. Here we show that food-grade and waste vegetable oils, triglycerides originating from animals, and natural waxes can serve as excellent green solvents for Buchwald–Hartwig amination. We further demonstrate that amphiphiles and trace ingredients ...

The design and synthesis of copper complexes that can reduce nitrite to NO has attracted considerable interest. They have been guided by the structural information on the catalytic Cu centre of the widespread enzymes Cu nitrite reductases but the chemically novel side-on binding of NO observed in all crystallographic studies of these enzymes has been questioned in terms of its functional relevance. ...

We present a fully analytic approach to calculate infrared (IR) and Raman spectra of molecules embedded in complex molecular environments modeled using the fragment-based polarizable embedding (PE) model. We provide the theory for the calculation of analytic second-order geometric derivatives of molecular energies and first-order geometric derivatives of electric dipole moments and dipole–dipole ...

Although the catalytic carboxylation of unactivated alkyl electrophiles has reached remarkable levels of sophistication, the intermediacy of (phenanthroline)Ni(I)–alkyl species—complexes proposed in numerous Ni-catalyzed reductive cross-coupling reactions—has been subject to speculation. Herein we report the synthesis of such elusive (phenanthroline)Ni(I) species and their reactivity with CO₂, ...