Conferência 13: Bioinorganic chemistry as an enabling technology

The purpose of this seminar is to provide evidence of how bioinorganic chemistry knowledge can be applied to drive change in technologies in diverse areas of chemical science.

As a first example, the case of gold-based catalysts will be discussed since they offer the opportunity of modulating bio-processes through reactions that are complementary to enzymes, and have emerged as promising tools for bio-orthogonal transformations, endowed with excellent reactivity and selectivity, compatibility within aqueous reaction medium, fast kinetics of ligand exchange reactions and mild reaction conditions.[1] Thus, this lecture will summarize recent findings from our group on Au(III)-catalyzed reductive elimination in aqueous media, providing the proof-of-concept for the use of organogold compounds – cyclometalated Au(III) C^N complexes - for the efficient modification of proteins through C–S cross coupling.[2] Furthermore, the obtained mechanistic insights have allowed to extend the cross-coupling concept to other substrates, to enable C–P and C–C bond formation under mild conditions.[3] These results could be relevant to the development of proteomic profiling of cysteine residues and of their oxidation states, as well as for the design of catalysts in different cross-coupling processes in aqueous environment.

Moreover, a second example on the application of bioconjugated photoactivable Ru(II) complexes to implement mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) will be included. Specifically, the proof-of-concept on a novel laser desorption ionization (LDI)-MSI strategy using photocleavable Ru(II) polypyridine complexes as mass-tags for imaging of integrins avß3 in human cancer tissues will be presented.