Plumbing the depths: Abyssomicin C (structure shown) from ocean floor sediment is a novel antibiotic that inhibits the biosynthesis steps between chorismate and p‐aminobenzoic acid. Its activity may be explained by the irreversible trapping of the targeted enzymes by a Michael addition. Blocking the biosynthesis of p‐aminobenzoic acid may be one approach to developing new antibiotics.

Coordination chemistry of gold catalysts bearing eight different ligands [L=PPh(3), JohnPhos (L2), Xphos (L3), DTBP, IMes, IPr, dppf, S-tolBINAP (L8)] has been studied by NMR spectroscopy in solution at room temperature. Cationic or neutral mononuclear complexes LAuX (L=L2, L3, IMes, IPr; X=charged or neutral ligand) underwent simple ligand exchange without giving any higher coordinate complexes. For L2AuX the following ligand strength series was determined: MeOH≪hex-3-yne

Calcium cyanurate is synthesized by reacting calcium chloride with potassium cyanate following a solid-state reaction. The formation of the new compound Ca3(O3C3N3)2 (CCY), which occurs by the cyclotrimerization of cyanate ions, was examined thermoanalytically and the crystal structure was determined by single-crystal structure analysis. The structure of CCY is closely related to the structure of the well-known oxoborate β-BaB2O4 (BBO). Second harmonic generation (SHG) measurements on crystal powders show a higher SHG efficiency for CCY than for BBO by about one order of magnitude.

Abstract:The synthesis of a hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene (HBC) with a central borazine core is described. The solid state structure of this BN doped HBC (BN-HBC) is isotypic with that of parent HBC. Scanning tunneling microscopy shows that BN-HBC is lying flat on Au(111) and is two-dimensional.

Octahedral tungsten iodide clusters equipped with apical ligands (L) are synthesized to implement substantial photophysical properties. The [WI(CFCOO)] cluster reported herein is the first example of a family of ligand substituted [WIL] clusters. Such compounds are expected to exhibit a rich photochemistry in which the apical ligands play a crucial role. The versatile solid state and solution phase photophysical properties of (TBA)[WI(CFCOO)] described herein parallel characteristics obtained in some photophysically active organic compounds, including a broad absorption in the UV/VIS region. Upon irradiation of this compound, a broad red emission is observed in the VIS/NIR region resulting from excited triplet states, and singlet oxygen (aΔ) is generated in the presence of O.