New Bio-inspired Catalytic Systems – NCiS

In the past 10 years, biocatalysis has emerged as a wonderful tool with broad applications for the synthetic organic chemist. Based on selective and eco-compatible processes, biocatalysis is usually associated with the use of enzymes. During the last five years, however, considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of DNA-based asymmetric biocatalysis resulting in the discovery of a few effective catalytic processes. While the field is progressing rapidly, only a few examples of such DNA-based asymmetric catalysts have been reported so far, and many significant challenges still remain. In this context, the main goals of the present project will be 1) to expand the concept of DNA-based asymmetric biocatalysis to a wider range of reactions, 2) to design and synthesize new DNA-based biocatalysts, and 3) to increase our insight into the mechanism that drives both the reactivity and the selectivity by studying the influence of the nature (GC-rich or AT-rich sequence) and the structure (L-DNA or a-DNA) of DNA.
After close examination of the literature pertaining to asymmetric organometallic catalysis, we chose to focus on iridium- and rhodium-based catalysts as they both involve the use of the same diene ligands. In this context, we will synthesize new non-chiral diene ligands linked to specific intercalants which bind to DNA in a non-covalent fashion. Of course, the synthesis of these ligands will need to be straightforward, versatile and scalable in order to be able to study multiple parameters such as the structure of the ligand, the type of anchorage, the spacer between the metal-complex and the DNA, as well as the nature, the length and the structure of the DNA scaffold.
This collaboration between two very complementary teams will be a great opportunity to make new discoveries in the field of asymmetric catalysis and allow French groups to participate in this endeavour.