DNA synthesis and assembly technology is the fundamental enabling technology of synthetic biology, providing methods for humans to understand and modify organisms. Oligonucleotide chains and long DNA fragments synthesized through DNA synthesis and assembly technology are becoming increasingly widely used in fields such as biomedicine, energy, new materials, and information storage, with strong application prospects. This review provides a comprehensive and systematic introduction and exposition of current DNA synthesis and assembly technologies, discussing current challenges and future research prospects.

The frequent occurrence of oil spills not only results in the waste of petroleum resources, but also poses a serious threat to the marine ecological environment. Considering the large amount of crude oils with high viscosity, it is urgent to develop an adsorbent capable of efficiently reducing the viscosity for the cleanup of oil spills. Inspired by the “lotus effect” and “poikilotherm which utilize the solar energy for thermoregulation”, the low surface energy material polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polypyrrole (PPy) were loaded over the island nonwoven fabric to fabricate a novel crude oil adsorbent material. Wherein, the fluorine-free PDMS was used to hydrophobically modify the nonwoven fabric, endowing it with excellent oil-water separation performance, with a separation efficiency of up to 95%. After 10 cycles, the separation efficiency of PPy/PDMS modified nonwoven fabric (PPy/PDMS@NF) was still above 90%, demonstrating superior recyclability. In addition, the PPy/PDMS@NF possessed the self-cleaning capabilities. Under one sun illumination (1.0 kW/m2), the surface temperature of the PPy/PDMS@NF reached to 60.7 ℃, and its adsorption capacity for high-viscosity crude oil reached to 7 gcrude oil/gsorbent. Thanks to its environmental friendliness and excellent adsorption capacity, this work provides a new option for dealing with the high-viscosity marine oil spill.

A design strategy towards stable fluorenyl radicals (FRs) is established by introducing donor-π-radical (D-π-R) conjugation between amine N atoms and FR centers through phenyl or 9-anthryl moieties. Four FRs with or without N atom containing protecting groups were designed and synthesized for comparison. X-ray crystallographic analysis displayed planar fluorenyl skeletons of CDP-FR and MA-FR, which form large dihedral angles with protecting groups. Even though, the increased bond-order of C-C and C-N bond be-tween radical center and N atoms by Wiberg bond analysis of all FRs confirmed the D-π-R conjugation. Time-dependent DFT calcula-tions based on frontier molecular orbital analysis further revealed the contribution of D-π-R structures as donor-acceptor effect on the lowest energy absorptions of carbazole and diphenylamine substituted CDP-FR and DPAA-FR. Therefore, beneficial from D-π-R conjugations, CDP-FR and DPAA-FR showed better photo-stability than TP-FR and MA-FR. Our study here provides a new strategy to design and synthesize persistent stable monoradicals.

3,3-disubstituted oxindoles, forming the core of extensive bioactive natural products and drugs, attract tremendous efforts to develop efficient methods for their preparation. Here, a substrate-photosensitive strategy for the selective synthesis of 3-substituted 3-aminooxindoles from N-Boc isatin ketimines irradiated by visible light was reported with high yields and broad functional group compatibility.

Natural products with high oxidation states and complex chemical skeletons exhibit diverse bioactivities due to their unique interactions with biological targets. The high oxidation state is characterized by the presence of multiple oxygen-containing functional groups such as hydroxyl groups, carbonyl groups, and epoxides that are usually tough to construct selectively. In recent years, thanks to the development of efficient strategies and sophisticated methodologies, significant advancements have been made in the total syntheses of highly oxidized natural products (HONPs), which are reviewed herein.

Imbalance in the levels of ascorbic acid (AA) can pose a risk to human health. Therefore, it’s essential to establish an accurate method for the detection of AA. In this work, a novel N-doped carbon composite (MnOx@NC) with dual enzyme-like activities to detect AA was prepared by calcination of Mn-MOF containing H3TTPCA ligand. Interestingly, the •O2− that leads to its oxidase-like activity was not formed by dissolved oxygen, but came from the synergistic effect of lattice oxygen generated by calcination and the transformation of MnⅡ/MnⅢ/MnⅣ, and the presence of H2O2 provided much •OH, which cause its peroxidase-like activity. Meanwhile, the residual N element came from H3TTPCA ligand assisted the catalytic process. Accordingly, a dual-signal sensing platform and smartphone-assisted recognition for detection of AA was developed and a colorimetric sensor array was established to distinguish three antioxidants. This work also demonstrates considerable promise for the detection of AA in authentic pharmaceuticals.

not-yet-known not-yet-known not-yet-known unknown A tandem Diels–Alder reaction / aza-Claisen rearrangement / decarboxylation strategy of N-allenamides with 3-alkoxycarbonyl-2-pyrones has been developed for the efficient synthesis of diarylmethanes with moderate to good yields. The reac-tion exhibits good functional group tolerance and can be applied to late-stage modifications of known drug molecules. Mechanistic studies indicate that the ester group at the 3-position of 2-pyrones is essential, and the initial Diels–Alder reaction between the 2-pyrones with the proximal C=C bond of the N-allenamides is crucial for the success of the reaction.

As one of the famous traditional Chinese herbal medicines, Fritillariae Cirrhosae Bulbus (FCB) is widely used in the prevention and treatment of respiratory diseases and has best curative effect among the known fritillarias medicinal. Due to the variety, complex sources, similar appearance and shape, it is difficult to distinguish FCB with high curative effect (h-FCB) from other common fritillarias (c-FCB) in the market. In this paper, a very simple chemiresistor is used to identify FCB from three commonly used fritillarias drugs. The sensors are fabricated by anisotropic electrically conductive Metal-organic framework (cMOF) thin film Cu3(HHTP)2 (Cu-HHTP[001] and Cu-HHTP[100]) as active materials owing to their ability to detect specific groups of volatile organic compounds (volatolomics) as the functional motifs of chemiresistor. As a result, the sensors show orientation-dependence identification ability to FCB. Cu-HHTP[001]-based sensor shows the highest response (344.17%) to 0.5 g h-FCB powder volatiles among its three other c-FCB which is much higher than Cu-HHTP[100] (135.50%). Ultimately, Cu-HHTP[001] can realize the identification of FCB with an accuracy of 97.2% in a simple and real-time manner.

In on-surface synthesis, dimers are typically utilized to explore reaction mechanisms or as intermediates in the formation of final products. However, constructing the innovative nanostructures with dimers as building blocks remains challenging. Here, using non-planar 2,2′,7,7′-tetrabromo-9,9′-biflurenyliden molecules, we have successfully synthesized dimeric covalent organic frameworks (COFs) on the Au(111) surface through a temperature-controlled cascade reaction. Notably, the H-H steric hindrance within precursors caused by double bonds leads to selective stepwise debromination during the thermal annealing, which promotes the dimerization through intermolecular Ullmann coupling and cyclodehydrogenation reaction to form COFs primarily constituted by dimer building blocks. Combining scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations, we have precisely confirmed the structural evolution and reaction mechanism. Furthermore, by introducing Ag adatoms to form C−Ag−C intermediates, we have successfully regulated the reaction path and synthesized one-dimensional nanoribbons with dimers as building blocks. This work not only validates the strategy of synthesizing dimeric nanostructures on different surfaces through cascade reactions induced by precursor design, but also enrich the research field of surface synthesis of COFs and nanoribbons.

With protoescigenin as starting material and through orchestrated application of Yu and Schmidt glyco-sylation protocols, the synthesis of acyl group-free escin derivatives were achieved for the first time. As the undesired non-specific toxicity, originated from the existence of acyl groups on aglycone, prohibits the wide application of escins, the established strategies toward non-acylated protoescigenin-type sap-onins would dramatically ease the access to escin derivatives dispense of acyl groups, thereby speeding up the pace of pharmaceutical use of these valuable compounds.

The design and development of efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for fuel cells and rechargeable metal-air batteries have become increasingly urgent. This study systematically investigated the OER/ORR catalytic activities of NiN4, NiN3, NiN3H2, NiN4X, NiN3X, and NiN3H2X (X denotes axial ligand) through density functional theory (DFT) calulations. This study unveils two distinct reaction pathways for ORR and OER, involving proton-electron pairs adsorbed from both the solution and the catalyst surface. When proton-electron pairs are adsorbed from the solution. The introduction of N defects, two hydrogen atoms, and axial ligands, can significantly reduce the ORR overpotential. Specifically, NiN3, NiN3H2, NiN3X, and NiN3H2X (X = CN, NO2, and NH2) exhibited superior ORR activity compared to Pt. Meanwhile, the introduction of N-defects (NiN3) and two H atoms (NiN3H2) significantly improves their OER overpotential. To sum up, NiN3 and NiN3H2 show promise as pH-universal bifunctional electrocatalysts for both ORR and OER. On the other hand, when proton-electron pairs are adsorbed from the catalyst surface, the reaction energy barrier becomes the crucial metric for assessing catalytic activity. Our investigation reveals that NiN3H2 consistently exhibits optimal ORR activity across a wide pH range, regardless of the source of proton-electron pair (solvent or catalyst surface).

The present work prepared a copper N-heterocyclic carbene complex that could be used in catalyzing the homogeneous hydrogenation of carboxylic acid with ammonia borane (hydrogen source) to synthesize primary alcohols. Various aromatic and aliphatic carboxylic acids with diverse functional groups were transformed to respective alcohols in moderate to high yields. The process can be easily scaled up (TON up to 14545) and exhibit a high compatibility with different sensitive functional groups, including fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, hydroxyl, cyano and nitro groups. IMesCuCl/NH3·BH3 combination can selectively reduce aromatic and aliphatic esters. Mechanistic studies indicate that Cu-H species produced in situ are the active intermediates.

Optically active phthalides are prevalent in many natural and bioactive products. Herein, a novel dynamic kinetic resolution of iso-benzofuranone derivatives through palladium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation has been developed to synthesize phthalide de-rivatives bearing vicinal quaternary and tertiary stereocenters with high yields, showing excellent regio-, enantio- and diastereoselec-tivity. Furthermore, gram-scale experiment underwent smoothly and the transformation of product could build a bridged bicyclic skeleton.

A mechanistically distinctive visible-light-promoted metal-free aerobic oxidation of alkenyl silanes with alcohols was disclosed to efficiently construct α-alkoxy ketones under mild conditions. The primary, secondary, and tertiary alcohols could be used as reactants. The protocol could be carried out on a gram-scale. The various derivatizations of products could be conducted. Mechanistic studies indicated the reaction was initiated by single-electron oxidation of the alkenyl silanes.

Salimabromide, a unique and scarce marine tetracyclic polyketide, was synthesized in both racemic and optically active forms. A novel carboxylic acid-directed method for tandem oxidative difunctionalization of olefins was developed, whereby the formation of bridged butyrolactone and enone moieties occurs concurrently. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that this reaction follows a [3+2] process rather than the [2+2] process. In the meantime, the distinctive benzo-fused [4.3.1] carbon skeleton and highly hin-dered vicinal quaternary stereocentres were simultaneously constructed through a challenging intramolecular Giese-Baran radical cyclization. Furthermore, deuterium kinetic isotopic effects were utilized to enhance the efficacy of this pivotal step. This represents a new illustration of the application of kinetic isotope effects in natural product synthesis. Then, short asymmetric syntheses of (+)-salimabromide (13 or 15 steps) was accomplished by combing this method with rhodium-catalyzed enantioselective hydrogena-tion of a cycloheptenone derivative (97% ee) or conjugate addition of an aryl boronic acid with 2-cyclohepten-1-one (> 99% ee).

Terpenoids are the largest and diverse family of natural secondary metabolites that have attracted more attention from chemists and pharmacologists for their intriguing skeletons and broad biological activities, including anti-inflammatory, antitumoral, antimicrobial, and anti-viral effects. Based on the previous reviews, we did a comprehensive summary of recent advances of bioactive terpenoids, focusing on their intriguing structural features and promising biological activities, covering the literatures from 2020 to 2023. In this review, 543 terpenoids with remarkable chemical architectures and biological properties are classified as monoterpenoids (7), sesquiterpenoids (142), diterpenoids (129), sesterterpenoids (24), triterpenoids (52), meroterpenoids (167), and miscellaneous terpenoids (14), that were isolated from terrestrial and marine resources. This review would provide a reference for researchers to rapidly discover the interesting terpenoids for further study as promising drug leads

The first catalytic asymmetric total synthesis of (+)-propolisbenzofuran B, enabled by a highly enantioselective rhodium-catalyzed hy-drogenation of a tetrasubstituted olefin, was described. Other noteworthy aspects include the construction of the central hydrodiben-zo[b,d]furan core through a sequence of Zn(II)-mediated regioselective benzofuran formation and Dieckmann condensation, as well as C-H oxidations, involving a visible light-induced Fe(III)-catalyzed benzylic C(sp3)-H oxidation. Additionally, the absolute configuration was confirmed by X-ray analysis of a carbonate intermediate.

The first total synthesis of neopetromin, featuring the highly strained Tyr C-6-to-Trp N-1′ linkage, is hereby reported. This modular synthetic strategy, employing C-H biarylation and Larock macrocyclization, offers a novel approach to the synthesis of various RiPPs natural product families.