Entropy Changes in Water Networks Promote Protein Denaturation.

For over a century, an explanation for how concentrated ions denature proteins has proven elusive. Here, we report a novel mechanism of protein denaturation driven by entropy changes in water networks. Experiments and simulations show that ion pairs like LiBr and LiCl localize water molecules and disrupt the water network's structure, while others exert a more global effect without compromising network integrity.

Access to Chiral Silicon Centers for Application to Circularly Polarized Luminescence Materials.

Asymmetric arylation of secondary silanes catalyzed by a Pd-chiral phosphoramidite complex was developed for application to low-molecular-weight circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials. The asymmetric arylation provided a convenient, efficient synthetic method for a variety of chiral tertiary silanes (2-21), which were key intermediates for preparing the quaternary silicon center. A stepwise, one-pot procedure was used to transform the appropriate aryl iodide to the quaternary silane (22) with good yield and enantioselectivity.