The regio- and chemoselective metalation of arenes and heteroarenesusing hindered metal amide bases is the topic of the Review by P. Knochel et al. in this issue. How can useful synthetic intermediates be obtained by this method? The Highlights deal with the direct observation of single RNA polymerases in living yeast cells (B. Treutlein and J. Michaelis) and radical chemistry with vitamin B12 (B. Kräutler and B. Puffer).
In the Communications section, C. Hertweck et al. demonstrate that the deletion of a gene that is required for global protein N-acetylation triggers the production of unprecedented metabolites in Aspergillus nidulans. S.-T. Lee et al. succeeded in the design of high-performance photoelectrochemical solar cells from arrays of silicon nanowires (see picture). T. Katsuki et al. report an efficient synthesis of optically active benzosultams. R. G. Cooks et al. present a technique for the induced nanoelectrospray ionization for matrix-tolerant high-throughput mass spectrometry.
