What creative and easy syntheses of chiral compounds and natural products are possible by using allenes? The Review by S. Yu and S. Ma addresses this question and also describes the exceptional physical and chemical properties of such compounds. In an Essay, E. M. Simmons and J. F. Hartwig discuss the kinetic isotope effect in C-H bond functionalizations by transition-metal complexes. The Highlights deal with bioactive nanovehicles based on protein polymers (E. Garanger and S. Lecommandoux) and amide solvolysis (J. Aubé).
In the Communications section, F. Castaño et al. show how to detect D-Ribose in the gas phase (and therefore space) by microwave spectroscopy. B. Vauzeilles et al. succeeded in the incorporation of an azide-modified analogue of 3-deoxy-D-manno-octulosonic acid into a membrane, thereby making it convenient to label bacteria with fluorescent markers by using click chemistry (see picture). C. Verani et al. synthesized two five-coordinate iron(III) complexes with geometries that are based on those found in redox-versatile enzymes. F. Kjeldsen et al. present a method for the protection of phoshphate ester groups during the fragmentation of phosphorylated peptide ions by collision-activated dissociation in phosphoproteomics.
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