Coordination Chemistry Reviews

Brain pathologies are considered one of the greatest contributors of death and disability worldwide. Neurodegenerative Alzheimer's disease is the second leading cause of death in adults, whilst brain cancers including glioblastoma multiforme in adults, and pediatric-type high-grade gliomas in children remain largely untreatable. A further compounding issue for patients with brain pathologies is that of long-term neuropsychiatric sequela - as a symptom or arising from high dose therapeutic intervention. The major challenge to effective, low dose treatment is finding therapeutics that successfully cross the blood-brain barrier and target aberrant cellular processes, while having minimum effect on essential cellular processes, and healthy bystander cells...

The catalytic addition of water to unsaturated C-C or C-N π bonds represent one of the most important and environmentally sustainable methods to form C-O bonds for the production of synthetic intermediates, medicinal agents and natural products. The traditional acid-catalyzed hydration of unsaturated compounds typically requires strong acids or toxic mercury salts, which limits practical applications and presents safety and environmental concerns. Today, transition-metal-catalyzed hydration supported by NHC (NHC = N-heterocyclic carbene) ligands has attracted major attention...

Engineered nanostructures are materials with promising properties, enabled by precise design and fabrication, as well as size-dependent effects. Biomedical applications of nanomaterials in disease-specific prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery monitoring require precise, specific, and sophisticated approaches to yield effective and long-lasting favorable outcomes for patients. In this regard, carbon nanofibers (CNFs) have been indentified due to their interesting properties, such as good mechanical strength, high electrical conductivity, and desirable morphological features...

Ruthenium(II)-based coordination complexes have emerged as photosensitizers (PSs) for photodynamic therapy (PDT) in oncology as well as antimicrobial indications and have great potential. Their modular architectures that integrate multiple ligands can be exploited to tune cellular uptake and subcellular targeting, solubility, light absorption, and other photophysical properties. A wide range of Ru(II) containing compounds have been reported as PSs for PDT or as photochemotherapy (PCT) agents. Many studies employ a common scaffold that is subject to systematic variation in one or two ligands to elucidate the impact of these modifications on the photophysical and photobiological performance...

Despite the extensive and rapid discovery of modern drugs for treatment of cancer, microbial infections, and viral illnesses; these diseases are still among major global health concerns. To take inspiration from natural nucleases and also the therapeutic potential of metallopeptide antibiotics such as the bleomycin family, artificial metallonucleases with the ability of promoting DNA/RNA cleavage and eventually affecting cellular biological processes can be introduced as a new class of therapeutic candidates...

Respiratory viruses represent a severe public health risk worldwide, and the research contribution to tackle the current pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 is one of the main targets among the scientific community. In this regard, experts from different fields have gathered to confront this catastrophic pandemic. This review illustrates how nanotechnology intervention could be valuable in solving this difficult situation, and the state of the art of Zn-based nanostructures are discussed in detail. For virus detection, learning from the experience of other respiratory viruses such as influenza, the potential use of Zn nanomaterials as suitable sensing platforms to recognize the S1 spike protein in SARS-CoV-2 are shown...

Boron dipyrromethene, commonly known as BODIPY, based metal-organic macrocycles (MOCs) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) represent an interesting part of materials due to their versatile tunability of structure and functionality as well as significant physicochemical properties, thus broadening their applications in various scientific domains, especially in biomedical sciences. With increasing concern over the efficacy of cancer drugs versus quality of patient's life dilemma, scientists have been trying to fabricate novel comprehensive therapeutic strategies along with the discovery of novel safer drugs where research with BODIPY metal complexes has shown vital advancements...

Conventional ureases possess dinuclear nickel active sites that are oxygen-stable and require a set of accessory proteins for metallocenter biosynthesis. By contrast, oxygen-labile ureases have active sites containing dual ferrous ions and lack a requirement for maturation proteins. The structures of the two types of urease are remarkably similar, with an active site architecture that includes two imidazoles and a carboxylate ligand coordinated to one metal, two imidazoles coordinated to the second metal, and a metal-bridging carbamylated lysine ligand...

The field of heterobimetallic chemistry has rapidly expanded over the last decade. In addition to their interesting structural features, heterobimetallic structures have been found to facilitate a range of stoichiometric bond activations and catalytic processes. The accompanying review summarizes advances in this area since January of 2010. The review encompasses well-characterized heterobimetallic complexes, with a particular focus on mechanistic details surrounding their reactivity applications.

Atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2 O) has garnered significant attention recently due to its dual roles as an ozone depletion agent and a potent greenhouse gas. Anthropogenic N2 O emissions occur primarily through agricultural disruption of nitrogen homeostasis causing N2 O to build up in the atmosphere. The enzyme responsible for N2 O fixation within the geochemical nitrogen cycle is nitrous oxide reductase (N2 OR), which catalyzes 2H+ /2e- reduction of N2 O to N2 and H2 O at a tetranuclear active site, CuZ . In this review, the coordination chemistry of CuZ is reviewed...

Porphyrins are important molecules widely found in nature in the form of enzyme active sites and visible light absorption units. Recent interest in using these functional molecules as building blocks for the construction of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have rapidly increased due to the ease in which the locations of, and the distances between, the porphyrin units can be controlled in these porous crystalline materials. Porphyrin-based MOFs with atomically precise structures provide an ideal platform for the investigation of their structure-function relationships in the solid state without compromising accessibility to the inherent properties of the porphyrin building blocks...

Since as early as 1867, molecular sensors have been recognized as being intelligent "devices" capable of addressing a variety of issues related to our environment and health (e.g., the detection of toxic pollutants or disease-related biomarkers). In this review, we focus on fluorescence-based sensors that incorporate supramolecular chemistry to achieve a desired sensing outcome. The goal is to provide an illustrative overview, rather than a comprehensive listing of all that has been done in the field...

The Cambridge Structural Database was evaluated for crystals containing Se… O chalcogen bonding interactions. These secondary bonding interactions are found to operate independently of complementary intermolecular interactions in about 13% of the structures they can potentially form. This number rises significantly when more specific interactions are considered, e.g. Se… O(carbonyl) interactions occur in 50% of cases where they can potentially form. In about 55% of cases, the supramolecular assemblies sustained by Se… O(oxygen) interactions are one-dimensional architectures, with the next most prominent being zero-dimensional assemblies, at 30%...

Reactive sulfur species (RSS) and reactive selenium species (RSeS) are important substances for the maintenance of physiological balance. Imbalance of RSS and RSeS is closely related to a series of human diseases, so it is considered to be an important biomarker in early diagnosis, treatment, and stage monitoring. Fast and accurate quantitative analysis of different RSS and RSeS in complex biological systems may promote the development of personalized diagnosis and treatment in the future. One way to explore the physiological function of various types of RSS and RSeS in vivo is to detect them at the molecular level, and one of the most effective methods for this is to use fluorescent probes...

Progress in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has advanced from fundamental chemistry to engineering processes and applications, resulting in new industrial opportunities. The unique features of MOFs, such as their permanent porosity, high surface area, and structural flexibility, continue to draw industrial interest outside the traditional MOF field, both to solve existing challenges and to create new businesses. In this context, diverse research has been directed toward commercializing MOFs, but such studies have been performed according to a variety of individual goals...

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The present study addresses existing data on the affinity and conjugation of sulfhydryl (thiol; -SH) groups of low- and high-molecular-weight biological ligands with mercury (Hg). The consequences of these interactions with special emphasis on pathways of Hg toxicity are highlighted. Cysteine (Cys) is considered the primary target of Hg, and link its sensitivity with thiol groups and cellular damage. In vivo , Hg complexes play a key role in Hg metabolism. Due to the increased affinity of Hg to SH groups in Cys residues, glutathione (GSH) is reactive...

Since the discovery and structural characterization of metal organic polygons and polyhedra ( MOPs ), scientists have explored their potential in various applications like catalysis, separation, storage, and sensing. In recent years, scientists have explored the potential of supramolecular MOPs in biomedical application. Pioneering works by Ehrlich, Rosenberg, Lippard, Stang and others have demonstrated that MOPs have great potential as a novel class of metallo-therapeutics that can deliver cargoes (drugs and dyes) selectively...

Defining the oxidation state of the central atom in a coordination compound is fundamental in understanding the electronic structure and provides a starting point for elucidating molecular properties. The presence of non-innocent ligand(s) can obscure the oxidation state of the central atom as the ligand contribution to the electronic structure is difficult to ascertain. Redox-active ligands, such as dithiolene ligands, are well known non-innocent ligands that can exist in both a fully reduced (Dt2- ) and fully oxidized (Dt0 ) states...

Imido complexes of early transition metals are key intermediates in the synthesis of many nitrogen-containing organic compounds. The metal-nitrogen double bond of the imido moiety undergoes [2+2] cycloaddition reactions with various unsaturated organic molecules to form new nitrogen-carbon and nitrogen-heteroatom bonds. This review article focuses on reactivity of the terminal imido complexes of Group 4-6 metals, summarizing their stoichiometric reactions and catalytic applications for a variety of reactions including alkyne hydroamination, alkyne carboamination, pyrrole formation, imine metathesis, and condensation reactions of carbonyl compounds with isocyanates...