BackgroundEven though human sweat is odorless, bacterial growth and decomposition of specific odor precursors in it is believed to give rise to body odor in humans. While mechanisms of odor generation have been widely studied in adults, little is known for teenagers and pre-pubescent children who have distinct sweat composition from immature apocrine and sebaceous glands, but are arguably more susceptible to the social and psychological impact of malodor.ResultsWe integrated information from whole microbiome analysis of multiple skin sites (underarm, neck, and head) and multiple time points (1 h and 8 h after bath), analyzing 180 samples in total to perform the largest metagenome-wide association study to date on malodor. Significant positive correlations were observed between odor intensity and the relative abundance of Staphylococcus hominis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Cutibacterium avidum, as well as negative correlation with Acinetobacter schindleri and Cutibacterium species. Metabolic pathway analysis highlighted the association of isovaleric and acetic acid production (sour odor) from enriched S. epidermidis (teen underarm) and S. hominis (child neck) enzymes and sulfur production from Staphylococcus species (teen underarm) with odor intensity, in good agreement with observed odor characteristics in pre-pubescent children and teenagers. Experiments with cultures on human and artificial sweat confirmed the ability of S. hominis and S. epidermidis to independently produce malodor with distinct odor characteristics.ConclusionsThese results showcase the power of skin metagenomics to study host-microbial co-metabolic interactions, identifying distinct pathways for odor generation from sweat in pre-pubescent children and teenagers and highlighting key enzymatic targets for intervention.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40168-018-0588-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The direct synthesis of amides by insertion into the C-H bond of aldehydes is shown to be a practical procedure through application of cheap, readily available catalysts generated in situ from copper(i) halides and pyridine.

Catalytic insertion or addition of a metal-imido/nitrene species, generated from reaction of a transition-metal catalyst with iminoiodanes, to C-H and C=C bonds offers a convenient and atom economical method for the synthesis of nitrogen-containing compounds. Following this groundbreaking discovery during the second half of the last century, the field has received an immense amount of attention with a myriad of impressive metal-mediated methods for the synthesis of amines and aziridines having been developed. This review will cover the significant progress made in improving the efficiency, versatility and stereocontrol of this important reaction. This will include the various iminoiodanes, their in situ formation, and metal catalysts that could be employed and new ligands, both chiral and non-chiral, which have been designed, as well as the application of this functional group transformation to natural product synthesis and the preparation of bioactive compounds of current therapeutic interest.

A method to prepare α-acyl-β-amino acid and 2,2-diacyl aziridine derivatives efficiently from Cu(OTf)(2) + 1,10-phenanthroline (1,10-phen)-catalyzed amination and aziridination of 2-alkyl substituted 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds with PhI═NTs is described. By taking advantage of the orthogonal modes of reactivity of the substrate through slight modification of the reaction conditions, a divergence in product selectivity was observed. In the presence of 1.2 equiv of the iminoiodane, amination of the allylic C-H bond of the enolic form of the substrate, formed in situ through coordination to the Lewis acidic metal catalyst, was found to selectively occur and give the β-aminated adduct. On the other hand, increasing the amount of the nitrogen source from 1.2 to 2-3 equiv was discovered to result in preferential formal aziridination of the C-C bond of the 2-alkyl substituent of the starting material and formation of the aziridine product.

A method to prepare α,α-acyl amino acid derivatives efficiently by Cu(OTf)(2)+1,10-phenanthroline (1,10-phen)-catalyzed amination of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds with PhI=NSO(2) Ar is described. The mechanism is thought to initially involve aziridination of the enolic form of the substrate, formed in situ through coordination to the Lewis acidic metal catalyst, by the putative copper-nitrene/imido species generated from the reaction of the metal catalyst with the iminoiodane source. Subsequent ring opening of the resultant aziridinol adduct under the Lewis acidic conditions then provided the α-aminated product. The utility of this method was exemplified by the enantioselective synthesis of a precursor of 3-styryl-2-benzoyl-L-alanine.