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The understanding of the structure, recognition, and function of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates remains crucial in diverse areas at the interface of biology, chemistry and biotechnology and is driving innovation in biomedical and material sciences. This new volume contains original work and critical reviews covering the current state-of-the-art and scientific advances in carbohydrate research and demonstrates cross-disciplinary areas within the field of glycosciences. Most of the chapters are contributions from speakers of the 14th International Meeting of the Portuguese Carbohydrate Group – GLUPOR 14, held in Caparica, Lisbon in January 2023. GLUPOR international meetings have a long history, with the first taking place in Lisbon in 1995 organized by Professor Amélia Pilar Rauter and resulting from the foundation of the Portuguese Carbohydrate Group of the Portuguese Chemical Society. Following the first meeting, GLUPOR has been held every two years providing a unique opportunity to strengthen collaborations and opening new directives for the carbohydrate community. The topics in Volume 46 cover current methods for stereoselective synthesis of carbohydrates, technologies for increasing the efficiency of glycosylation reactions, value-added carbohydrate-based materials towards more sustainable approaches, molecular recognition and structural-based approaches and bioinformatics to understand microbe–host interactions and to develop new applications in biotechnology and tools in the glycosciences. This set of reports will certainly benefit any researcher who wishes to learn about the latest developments in the carbohydrate field from basic to applied research.

Circadian rhythms have been shown to be ubiquitous and critically important in the experimental laboratory, accounting for the difference between life and death in response to identical stimulus. The partly endogenous nature of circadian rhythms has been well documented and methods for their characterisation have been developed enabling the cellular and molecular mechanisms to be understood. Chronobiology and Chronomedicine aims to provide a review of these mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms and illustrate the role of the brain's suprachiasmatic nuclei in the ‘pace-making'process and the effects caused by ‘clock genes'present in almost all cells. Beyond the mechanisms involved, the book discusses the relationship between body systems, disease, and proper circadian function; in particular, how disruption of the circadian rhythm is associated with ill health and disease status from observations made at the organismic level. The book is organised to be an ideal introduction for the postgraduate in various fields, reviewing developments and outlining methods to show the depth and breadth of chronobiology and chronomedicine, as well as an invaluable companion to researchers and healthcare professionals working in the field with an interest in developing novel therapeutic approaches.

Antibiotic resistance is a global health concern. Strains of pathogenic microorganisms that have developed resistance to multiple antibiotics, such as MRSA, are extremely difficult to treat, and alternative methods for tackling pathogenic microorganisms are in demand. One potential target for new therapeutics is inhibition of quorum sensing: how microorganisms communicate and form biofilms in a density-dependent manner. Inhibiting this system via ‘quorum quenching'(QQ) is a promising route to new pharmaceuticals and for controlling biofilm formation and growth. Quorum sensing also provides interesting possibilities in synthetic biology for producing novel products, biosensors, bioactive molecules, and so on. This book covers the biology of quorum sensing and quenching, and potential sources of QQ enzymes and other inhibitors, as well as an overview of their mechanism and potential biotech applications. The book also covers the potential for new drug development from QQ, covering a range of related topics including protein engineering, imaging and computational studies, and integrated systems. This book is an ideal companion to researchers in chemical biology and medicinal chemistry, particularly those interested in biofilm formation, quorum sensing, novel antimicrobial development, synthetic biology and enzymology.

This book delves into the world of natural sources from medicinal plants, microbes, and fungi, to lichen, algae, and clay minerals that have been used for centuries in traditional medicine. These sources are rich in bioactive secondary metabolites that have a wide range of applications in various industries, including cosmetics and personal care products. This book provides a comprehensive guide to secondary metabolites for cosmeceutical purposes, regulatory perspectives for cosmeceuticals in different countries, and allergic responses from these secondary metabolites. Additionally, this book discusses the impact of nanotechnology on cosmetic products such as skin and hair care. Bioprospecting of Natural Sources for Cosmeceuticals is a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students in chemistry, botany, biotechnology, microbiology, cosmetic science, and the pharmaceutical sciences. It is also useful for those researching traditional medicine systems and those in the microbiology, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and nanoscience industries.

There is an increasing awareness that materials and chemicals produced from fossil fuels are not sustainable, both in terms of the pollution caused by the extraction and production processes, and the fact that there is only a finite supply of these fossil fuels. Therefore, there is a strong incentive to find sources for chemicals and materials from source materials that we know we can continue to generate. Plants are a source of a wide variety of chemicals, many with interesting properties, and these chemical feedstocks are considered renewable rather than finite. Green Chemistry and Green Materials from Plant Oils and Natural Acids covers the application of these natural materials in producing polymers, lubricants and plasticisers.

This publication is based on peer-reviewed manuscripts from the 2022 Conference on Current Trends in Drug Discovery, Development and Delivery (CTD4-2022) held at KL University, India. Providing a wide range of up to date topics on the latest advancements in drug design and discovery technologies, this book ensures the reader receives a good understanding of the scope of the field. Aimed at scientists, students, regulators, academics and consultants throughout the world, this book is an ideal resource for anyone interested in the state of the art in drug design and discovery.

The phytochemical constituents of plants fall into two main categories based on their role in basic metabolic processes: primary and secondary. Primary metabolites are involved in basic life functions and are similar in all living cells, whereas secondary metabolites are derived from subsidiary pathways. Although traditionally referred to as secondary metabolites, more recently these compounds have been termed ‘plant specialized metabolites', as the exact biochemical boundary between primary and secondary metabolites has not been fully established. Plant specialized metabolites are the main elements in the study and use of ‘medicinal'plants and herbs, as well as in nutrition and food chemistry. In modern medicine, plant specialized metabolites provide many of the lead compounds in the production of medicines targeted at treating a broad variety of diseases. Such metabolites also play an important role in sessile plants to resist and withstand different biotic and abiotic stresses. Plant specialized metabolites are classified according to their chemical structures and this book will present the different classes in turn, while discussing their sources and distribution in plant families, their biosynthetic pathways, and their important and notable uses in phytochemistry and pharmacology. Chemical Diversity of Plant Specialized Metabolites will be a useful guide and reference point for chemists and students in many disciplines including synthetic organic chemists, medicinal chemists, plant scientists, pharmacognosists, chemical ecologists, bioengineers, and synthetic biologists, in addition to those working in related fields.

Building upon the previous volumes, The Chemical Biology of Sulfur, The Chemical Biology of Phosphorus, and The Chemical Biology of Nitrogen, this book examines the organic chemistry of life, The Chemical Biology of Carbon. It examines chemical biology open to carbon-containing natural metabolites that allow both retrospective and predictive behaviours of both biosynthetic and degradative metabolism in primary and secondary pathways. This book also notes the centrality of a core set of heterocycles in metabolites and coenzyme forms of vitamins and how that chemistry enables life. The organic chemical fundamental considerations are always tied to specific metabolites and metabolic transformations. This context makes this volume not a classical organic or even bioorganic approach to organic chemistry in vivo but instead a unique analysis of how the rules and reactivities of organic chemistry underlie the organic chemistry of life. The Chemical Biology of Carbon is an ideal reference and guide for medicinal chemists, chemical biologists, organic chemists as well as postgraduate, graduate and advanced undergraduate students in these areas and related disciplines.

Completely revised and updated, this 2nd Edition of Reactivity and Mechanism in Organic Chemistry is an ideal introduction to the quantitative description of organic reactivity for students in undergraduate and masters chemistry programmes. The book proceeds logically from qualitative molecular orbital theory as a tool for the description of bonding phenomena to combining this with thermochemical data to rationalise concepts such as molecular strain and hyperconjugation. Next, transition state theory, for examining organic reactivity phenomena, is introduced and its relation to energy surfaces and simple rate equations is discussed. On this basis more specific reactivity concepts commonly used in organic chemistry are explored such as the Bell–Evans–Polanyi principle, Marcus theory, HSAB principle, Hammett correlations, the Mayr–Patz equation, and FMO theory. How these reactivity models are applied is demonstrated for pericyclic reactions and selected rearrangement reactions involving transient intermediates such as radicals, diradicals, or carbocations, and for reactions involving classical electrophile/nucleophile combinations.

In many fields, most notably medicine and molecular biology, the understanding of the structure and function of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates remains vital. This new volume contains critical reviews covering the latest findings in both chemical and biological sciences, and demonstrates the interdisciplinary nature of modern carbohydrate research. This book addresses diverse applications that continue to be major challenges for carbohydrate chemists. The book starts with a review of Gérard Descotes contribution to the field as a pioneer of French modern carbohydrate chemistry. Green nanocatalytic oxidation of free sugars, photosensitive glycomacrocycles, the application of disaccharides in supramolecular chemistry, recent advances in the radiation chemistry of polysaccharides, and the cell wall pectic rhamnogalacturonan II, an enigma in plant glycobiology are just some of the diverse topics presented in Volume 45. This set of reports will certainly benefit any researcher who wishes to learn about the latest developments in the carbohydrate field.

The covalent conjugation of potent cytotoxic agents to monoclonal antibodies, known as antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) is a powerful approach in the field of targeted treatment of cancer. Clearly, both monoclonal antibody and cytotoxic payload are crucial elements in determining the clinical value of an ADC and have receive ample attention. However, the structural element connecting the two –the chemical linker– also plays an essential role in mode-of-action, efficacy, pharmacokinetics and safety profile of an ADC, but is often underappreciated in considerations of ADC design.Chemical Linkers in Antibody–Drug Conjugates aims to shine a detailed light on the various key attributes of chemical linkers in ADCs, for drug-to-antibody ratio, for stability, for release mechanism of payload, for pharmacokinetics, for stability determination, and for efficacy and safety. Ideal for postgraduate students and active researchers in drug discovery and development, this book provides a comprehensive description of linkers used in ADCs (clinical and late preclinical), insight into key quality attributes of linkers for ADCs, and aids the reader in understanding the role of linker chemistry and designing new ADCs.

Authored by leading experts in the enzymology of natural product biosynthesis, this completely revised and updated edition provides a description of the types of natural products, the biosynthetic pathways that enable the production of these molecules, and an update on the discovery of novel products in the post-genomic era. Although some 500 000 – 600 000 natural products have been isolated and characterized over the past two centuries, there may be a 10-fold greater inventory awaiting immediate exploration based on biosynthetic gene cluster predictions. The approach of this book is to codify the chemical logic that underlies each natural product structural class as they are assembled from building blocks of primary metabolism. This second edition integrates many new findings into the sets of principles of the first edition that parsed categories of natural product chemistries into the underlying enzymatic mechanisms and the catalytic machinery for building the varied and complex end product metabolites. New chapters include evaluation of a core set of thermodynamically activated but kinetically stable metabolites that power both primary and secondary metabolic pathways. Also, after decades of uncertainty about the existence of various pericyclase classes, a series of genome mining, heterologous expression, and enzymatic activity characterization have validated a plethora of pericyclases over the past decade. The several types of pericyclases are involved in biosynthetic complexity generation of almost every major category of natural products. This text will serve as a reference point for chemists of every subdiscipline, including synthetic organic chemists and medicinal chemists. It will also be valuable to bioinformatic and computational biologists, pharmacognocists and chemical ecologists, and bioengineers and synthetic biologists.

The structure, function and reactions of nucleic acids are central to molecular biology and medicine and are crucial for understanding of the ever-expanding range of complex biological processes involved which are central to life. Revised, extended, updated and lavishly illustrated, this 4th Edition of Nucleic Acids in Chemistry and Biology is a long-awaited standard text for teaching and research in nucleic acids science. It maintains the close integration of chemistry and biology that characterised the earlier editions and contains a major expansion largely focused on the burgeoning growth of RNA science. Written by an international team of leading experts, all with extensive teaching experience, this 4th Edition provides up-to-date and extended coverage of the reactions and interactions of RNA and DNA with proteins and drugs. A brief history of the discovery of nucleic acids is followed by a molecule-based introduction to the structure and biological roles of DNA and RNA and the basics of Genes and Genomes. New key chapters are devoted to non-coding RNA, nucleic acids sequencing, nucleic acid therapeutics, in vitro evolution and aptamers, and protein-RNA interactions. The text is linked to an extensive list of references to make it a definitive reference source. This authoritative volume presents topics in an integrated manner and readable style with full colour illustrations throughout. It is ideal for graduate and undergraduate students of chemistry and biochemistry, biophysics and biotechnology, and molecular biology and medicine. It will be a guidebook for new researchers to the field of nucleic acids science.

This book provides an interdisciplinary review of one of the great unsolved mysteries that has fascinated scientists for over 150 years: the origin of chirality in biomolecules. Current advances in fields as diverse as space exploration, prebiotic chemistry and high-energy physics may help to provide an answer. Important pieces of information will come from observations at the two frontiers of science: outer space and the subatomic world. Observation of distant planets, galaxies, and even actual sampling of celestial objects from beyond the solar system are projects currently underway. At the other end of the spectrum, there are experiments that study the elemental properties of matter, such as symmetry, and interactions with the fundamental forces. Completely revised and updated this new edition once again unifies all the theories of the origin of biomolecular homochirality together in a single source. This complete, interdisciplinary review of an intriguing subject condenses a large and disparate range of contributions from journals in almost every scientific field. The various theories have been organized, interrelated and explained in a unified way. It is fundamental, comprehensive and structured to be accessible for educational purposes.