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Among the unstabilized enolates used as nucleophiles in iridium-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation reactions, amide enolates are the least explored. Vinyl azides are now employed as amide enolate surrogates in Ir-catalyzed asymmetric allylic alkylation with branched allylic alcohols as the allylic electrophile. Selleck HA130 Competing reaction pathways are suppressed through the systematic tuning of the steric and electronic properties of vinyl azide to effect the α-allylic alkylation of secondary acetamides with high atom economy, exclusive branched selectivity, and mostly excellent enantioselectivity.Copper-mediated [3 + 2] annulation of alkenes with α-nitrobenzyl bromides has been developed. The reaction is promoted simply by a copper salt to produce the corresponding 2-isoxazoline N-oxides with perfect regioselectivity. The present method can be conducted under mild conditions, affording a diverse array of 2-isoxazoline N-oxides. The obtained products can readily be converted to the related heterocycles such as 2-isoxazoline and isoxazole. A radical-polar crossover pathway initiated by single-electron transfer from nitronate to a copper salt is proposed.Lanthanide-based upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) generally require high power laser excitation. Here, we report wide-field upconversion microscopy at single-nanoparticle sensitivity using incoherent excitation of a 970 nm light-emitting diode (LED). We show that due to its broad emission spectrum, LED excitation is about 3 times less effective for UCNPs and generates high background compared to laser illumination. To counter this, we use time-gated luminescence detection to eliminate the residual background from the LED source, so that individual UCNPs with high sensitizer (Yb3+) doping and inert shell protection become clearly identified under LED excitation at 1.18 W cm-2, as confirmed by correlated electron microscopy images. Hydrophilic UCNPs are obtained by polysaccharide coating via a facile ligand exchange protocol to demonstrate imaging of cellular uptake using LED excitation. These results suggest a viable approach to bypassing the limitations associated with high-power lasers when applying UCNPs and upconversion microscopy to life science research.In this article, the synthesis, characterization, and cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements are reported for ferrocene-terminated oligophenyleneimine (OPI_Fc) and ferrocene-terminated conjugation-broken oligophenyleneimine (CB-OPI_Fc) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in two different electrolytes, namely, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium-bis (trifluoromethyl-sulfonyl) imide (EMITFSI) ionic liquid and tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate (Bu4NPF6) in acetonitrile (0.1 M solution). The SAMs were synthesized on Au surfaces by the sequential imine condensation reactions. CV was used to investigate the kinetics of electron transfer (ET) to the ferrocene, and it was observed that the standard ET rate constant (k0) is a strong function of the electrolyte nature as well as the chemical composition of the SAM. Interestingly, when 0.1 M Bu4NPF6 in acetonitrile was used as the electrolyte, all of the SAMs exhibited quite similar k0 values. However, in the case of the ionic liquid, we found that k0 dramatically varies for each SAM and trends as OPI 6_Fc > CB3-OPI 6_Fc > CB5-OPI 6_Fc > CB3,5-OPI 6_Fc. We also examined the temperature dependence of ET kinetics for OPI 2_Fc, OPI 4_Fc, OPI 8_Fc, CB3-OPI 6_Fc, CB5-OPI 6_Fc, and CB3,5-OPI 6_Fc SAMs in EMITFSI ionic liquid. It was found that the activation energies of the ET in these SAMs are very similar (∼0.2 eV). Moreover, it was observed that ln k0 varies linearly with the molecular length for three SAMs, OPI 2_Fc, OPI 4_Fc, and OPI 8_Fc. These findings suggest that the ET to the ferrocene in OPI_Fc and CB-OPI _Fc SAMs takes place via a direct tunneling mechanism.The hydrogenation of CO2 into value-added complexes is of great importance for both environmental and economic issues. Metal hydrides are good models for the active sites to explore the nature of CO2 hydrogenation; however, the fundamental insights into C-H bond formation are still far from clear because of the complexity of real-life catalysts. Herein, gas-phase reactions of the Fe2H n – (n = 0-3) anions with CO2 were investigated using mass spectrometry and quantum chemical calculations. The experimental results showed that the reduction of CO2 into CO dominates all of these reactions, whereas Fe2H- and Fe2H2- can induce the hydrogenation of CO2 effectively to give rise to products Fe(HCO2)- and HFe(HCO2)-, respectively. The mechanistic aspects and the reactivity of Fe2H n – with an increased number of H atoms in CO2 hydrogenation were rationalized by theoretical calculations.Nearly all biological processes, including strictly regulated protein-protein interactions fundamental in cell signaling, occur inside living cells where the concentration of macromolecules can exceed 300 g/L. One such interaction is between a 7 kDa SH3 domain and a 25 kDa intrinsically disordered region of Son of Sevenless (SOS). Despite its key role in the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway of all eukaryotes, most biophysical characterizations of this complex are performed in dilute buffered solutions where cosolute concentrations rarely exceed 10 g/L. Here, we investigate the effects of proteins, sugars, and urea, at high g/L concentrations, on the kinetics and equilibrium thermodynamics of binding between SH3 and two SOS-derived peptides using 19F NMR lineshape analysis. We also analyze the temperature dependence, which enables quantification of the enthalpic and entropic contributions. The energetics of SH3-peptide binding in proteins differs from those in the small molecules we used as control cosolutes, demonstrating the importance of using proteins as physiologically relevant cosolutes. Although most of the protein cosolutes destabilize the SH3-peptide complexes, the effects are nongeneralizable and there are subtle differences, which are likely from weak nonspecific interactions between the test proteins and the protein crowders. We also quantify the effects of cosolutes on SH3 translational and rotational diffusion to rationalize the effects on association rate constants. The absence of a correlation between the SH3 diffusion data and the kinetic data in certain cosolutes suggests that the properties of the peptide in crowded conditions must be considered when interpreting energetic effects. These studies have implications for understanding protein-protein interactions in cells and show the importance of using physiologically relevant cosolutes for investigating macromolecular crowding effects.