Bioinspired organic chemistry

Phase separation in binary eye lens protein mixtures

“…Broader implications for the nature of sensitivity and responses are to be expected within the crowded interiors of a variety of living cells. 95,96 In both the interior of cells and on their surfaces, phase transitions, spontaneous self-assembly and compartmentalization within mixtures of macromolecules are ubiquitous. In the quest to quantitatively understand the driving forces for such phenomena, the findings here suggest that it is important to keep in mind that effective macromolecule potential well depth changes on the order of just one-tenth of kT, easily obtainable by single point mutations, are capable of qualitatively switching the nature of separated phases and of varying proximity to phase separation in a non-monotonic fashion.…”

Bioinspired organic chemistry

“…The elucidation of the precise mechanism of these enzymatic reactions will provide valuable lessons on the factors behind such remarkable rate enhancements and has been the focus of many recent studies. Williams and coworkers have contributed to these mechanistic studies with some excellent work in recent years 84 and have lately reported the results of a study on the cleavage and isomerization of UpU promoted by dinuclear metal ion complexes. 85 They were able to show that synthetic dinuclear metal ion complexes bearing second sphere hydrogen bond donors stabilize a phosphorane intermediate enough to allow pseudorotation.…”