Biosynthesis is the focus of the Review by. C. Khosla et al.: The authors summarize the routes to and metabolic logic for noncanonical amino acid building blocks of ribosomal peptide frameworks and hybrid nonribosomal peptide/polyketide scaffolds. In a Minireview, R. V. A. Orru et al. discuss the palladium-catalyzed insertion reactions of isocyanides (imidoylative cross-couplings) in the syntheses of heterocycles and functional groups. The Highlight deals with the electrophilic α-amination of α-alkyl-β-ketoesters (P. Selig), and M. Szafrański comments on the recent report of ferroelectricity in bis(imidazolium) l-tartrate.
In the Communications section, A. Schulz et al. describe stable arsa-diazonium salts with a triple bond between the arsenic and nitrogen atoms (see picture). H. Tokuyama et al. present a protecting-group-free total synthesis of (−)-rhazinilam and (−)-rhazinicine. D. R. Bundle et al. succeeded in the design and synthesis of a universal antigen to detect brucellosis. J. Wang et al. report on flexible biofuel cells that harvest biochemical energy from human perspiration in substantial amounts in real-life scenarios.
