Generation and propagation of radical reactions on proteins.

Carbohelicenes are a class of fascinating chiral helical molecules which have a rich history in chemistry. Over a period of almost 100 years, chemists have developed many methods to prepare them in a racemic or in a non-racemic form. They also possess a series of interesting chiral, physical, electronic and optical properties. However, their utilization in chemistry or chemistry-related fields has rarely appeared in a detailed and comprehensive review. It is the purpose of this review to collect fundamental applications and functions involving carbohelicenes in various disciplines such as in materials science, in nanoscience, in biological chemistry and in supramolecular chemistry. From the numerous synthetic methodologies reported up to now, carbohelicenes and their derivatives can be tailor-made for a better involvement in several subfields. Among those domains are: nanosciences, chemosensing, liquid crystals, molecular switches, polymers, foldamers, supramolecular materials, molecular recognition, conductive and opto-electronic materials, nonlinear optics, chirality studies and asymmetric synthesis. Helicene chemistry is now at a developmental stage, where sufficient application data are now collected and are extremely useful. They provide many more ideas for setting up the basis for future innovative applications.

One hundred years of helicene chemistry. Part 3: applications and properties of carbohelicenes

Proteins are major targets for radicals and two-electron oxidants in biological systems due to their abundance and high rate constants for reaction. With highly reactive radicals damage occurs at multiple side-chain and backbone sites. Less reactive species show greater selectivity with regard to the residues targeted and their spatial location. Modification can result in increased side-chain hydrophilicity, side-chain and backbone fragmentation, aggregation via covalent cross-linking or hydrophobic interactions, protein unfolding and altered conformation, altered interactions with biological partners and modified turnover. In the presence of O2, high yields of peroxyl radicals and peroxides (protein peroxidation) are formed; the latter account for up to 70% of the initial oxidant flux. Protein peroxides can oxidize both proteins and other targets. One-electron reduction results in additional radicals and chain reactions with alcohols and carbonyls as major products; the latter are commonly used markers of protein damage. Direct oxidation of cysteine (and less commonly) methionine residues is a major reaction; this is typically faster than with H2O2, and results in altered protein activity and function. Unlike H2O2, which is rapidly removed by protective enzymes, protein peroxides are only slowly removed, and catabolism is a major fate. Although turnover of modified proteins by proteasomal and lysosomal enzymes, and other proteases (e.g. mitochondrial Lon), can be efficient, protein hydroperoxides inhibit these pathways and this may contribute to the accumulation of modified proteins in cells. Available evidence supports an association between protein oxidation and multiple human pathologies, but whether this link is causal remains to be established.

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Protein oxidation and peroxidation.

The search for advanced, high performance, high temperature resistant polymers is on the rise in view of the growing demand for polymer matrix composites that are to meet stringent functional requirements for use in the rapidly evolving high-tech area of aerospace. Cyanate esters (CEs) form a family of new generation thermosetting resins whose performance characteristics make them attractive competitors to many current commercial polymer materials for such applications. The chemistry and technology of CEs are relatively new and continue to evolve and enthuse researchers. The CEs are gifted with many attractive physical, electrical, thermal, and processing properties required of an ideal matrix resin. These properties are further tunable through backbone structure and by blending with other polymer systems. The structure-property correlation is quite well established. Several new monomers have been reported while some are commercially available. The synthesis of new monomers has come to a stage of stagnation and the present attention is on evolving new formulations and processing techniques. The blends with epoxy and bismaleimide have attracted a lot of research attention and achieved commercial success. While the latter is now known to form an IPN, the reaction mechanism with epoxy is still intriguing. Extensive research in blending with conventional and high performance thermoplastics has led to the generation of key information on morphological features and toughening mechanisms, to the extent that even simulation of morphology and property has now become possible. Despite the fact that the resin and its technology are nearly two decades old, the fundamental aspects related to curing, cure kinetics, reaction modeling, etc. still evince immense research interest and new hypotheses continue to emerge.

Cyanate Ester Resins, Recent Developments

Singlet-oxygen-mediated amino acid and protein oxidation: formation of tryptophan peroxides and decomposition products.

Upon two-electron oxidation of the title electron donor 1a, the elongated central C9–C10 bond [1.656(5)
A
(X-ray)] is cleaved to give the biphenyl-2,2′-diyl bis(xanthenylium) dye 2a2+, which regenerates the colorless dispiro compound 1a by two-electron reduction. The presence of isosbestic points in the UV–Vis spectra during the electrochemical oxidation of 1a to 2a2+ indicates the negligible steady-state concentration of the intermediate cation radical. Interconversion between optically resolved 1a and 2a2+ is accompanied by drastic changes in the CD spectra again with several isosbestic points, and racemization of (P)- and (M)-1a and (S)- and (R)-2a2+ does not occur at ambient conditions. This redox pair represents a new motif for the multi-output response system, where the electrochemical input is transduced into two independent spectral outputs.

Electrochiroptical response of a hexaarylethane derivative with a helical π-skeleton: drastic UV–Vis and CD spectral changes upon electrolysis of 4′,5′-dibromodispiro[xanthene-9,9′(9′H,10′H)-phenanthrene-10′,9″-xanthene]

Rie Yamamoto

Papers

Electrochiroptical response of a hexaarylethane derivative with a helical π-skeleton: drastic UV–Vis and CD spectral changes upon electrolysis of 4′,5′-dibromodispiro[xanthene-9,9′(9′H,10′H)-phenanthrene-10′,9″-xanthene]