[Perspective] Teaching nature the unnatural
Thursday, November 24, 2016 - 15:11
in Psychology & Sociology
Silicon is found in nature in many inorganic forms, some of which are constructed by living organisms. Yet, no known biological molecule contains a carbon–silicon (C–Si) bond, and no biological processes to form C–Si bonds have been identified. On page 1048 of this issue, Kan et al. (1) show that natural as well as reengineered enzymes can promote C–Si bond formation. The resulting chiral compounds mostly consist of one of the two possible stereoisomers (enantiomers). Authors: Hendrik F. T. Klare, Martin Oestreich